Namikaze Sasuke
by Obsidian Fire
Summary: Minato seals the Kyuubi into Sasuke instead of Naruto. After slicing Sasuke's sharingan out, Fugaku disowns him and Mikoto out of anger. They are taken in by the Namikaze clan. Seeing underneath the underneath has never been as important as it is now.
1. The Sealing

A/N: I was introduced to FanFiction several months ago. After a while, I notice that there were some stories I wanted to read, but nobody had written them. So, when nobody does something, you have to do it yourself, and here I am publishing this. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 1**  
The Sealing**

Namikaze Minato looked around his office and sighed in frustration. Ever since he had learned the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the lord of the bijuu, was headed towards Konoha, he had resurrected way to seal it just in case it decided to attack Konoha. Now it was attacking and he still had no way to seal it. _Or,_ he admitted to himself, _no way I want to seal it. Oh Kushina,why did we wait so long before we... _he sighed. There was a knock at the door.

"Enter. Jiraiya," he sighed when he saw who it was. "What are you doing here?"

"Checking up on you progress. How is it going?"

"Both good and bad. What do you want to know first, the good or the bad?"

"The good: I could really use it right now."

"Well, the good news is that the Kyuubi can be sealed with the Fuuin Jutsu: Shiki Juuin."

"Is that with the alterations we made to the seal or without?" Jiraiya looked worried.

" With." He looked up at Jiraiya. "If Naruto had been conceived a few months earlier we wouldn't even be in this predicament."

Jiraiya looked shocked. "You would not seriously consider turning your own child into a jinchuuriki!"

"If that was what it took to ensure the safety and preservation of Konoha then I would gladly make that sacrifice. As it is, Kushina is five months pregnant so there is no way the Kyuubi can be sealed into Naruto."

"So that's the bad news?"

"Yes."

Jiraiya looked confused. "I don't get it. Why would it have to be Naruto? Other than the fact that he would have both you and Kushina's enormous chakra reserves, I don't see why it has to be him."

"It has to be him. Not because of any abilities he will have, but because I cannot force the burden of being a jinchuuriki on another child when I am not willing to sacrifice my own child."

"We may have to do just that." Jiraiya and Minato looked at each other. They both knew that if the Kyuubi was not stopped here, he never would be.

Minato sighed in defeat. "I guess I'll go see if there is any babies in the hospital that fit the criteria for the sealing. Do you want to come with me?"

"Yeah, I'll come." Jiraiya and Minato got up and walked to the door. Minato turned around to get one last look at his beloved office.

"I will miss it," he simply said.

"Miss what? Being Hokage or the paper work?" Jiraiya laughed at his own joke.

"Both actually. What?" Minato said, seeing the look on his sensei's face. "How could you not miss it when the only paperwork you ever did were the decrees you wrote?"

"Wait a minute, that's why your office is always free of paper work. You never do it. Actually that doesn't make sense. You had to have done it because people complained about how fast you got their paper work back to them. So," Jiraiya looked at his student. "How do you do it?"

"Kage Bushin. They're also useful when you want to get out of those annoying council meetings. Don't tell Sarutobi. He never figured out how I got all my paperwork done and I consider it a matter of pride that he never will."

"Don't worry I won't." Jiraiya and Minato laughed and another laugh, one Minato knew well, rang out with it.

"Kushina!" He wrenched the door open. Standing in the hall was his red-haired konochi wife who was obviously several months pregnant. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was going to ask you how things were going, but I just found that out from you." Kushina smiled at Minato. "But now I think I'll give you some friendly advice."

Minato had learned long ago that his wife's advice turned out to be good more often then not. _That's probably why we made such a good team. _"What do you think I should do?"

"You know that both me and my teammate, Uchiha Mikoto are out on maternity leave. She was due last week."

"That won't work. The child's umbilical cord must have just been cut for it to work. Even if the child was a few hours old much less a few days old it wouldn't work." _Actually, _Minato thought,_ Mikoto's child wouldn't be a bad choice. Mikoto is completely loyal to Konoha even if most of her clan isn't. She also has a head on her shoulders and would understand that her son is not the Kyuubi, but the container of it. If the child hadn't been born, it would have been an ideal alternative._

At his explanation Kushina laughed. "I didn't say that Mikoto's child had been born last week. I said that it was due to be born. She's in the hospital because of the Kyuubi attack, but she hasn't given birth yet."

Minato looked at Jiraiya. "Should we take the chance with Mikoto's child?"

"Will she understand what we are doing and why?"

"Yes," Kushina answered.

"Then ask her."

"Kushina, lead us to Mikoto." Now that a decision had been made, Minato was determined to see it through.

* * *

The three shinobi make their way through the village, jumping from roof to roof. Looking to the north-east, Minato could see the red glow against the sky that was caused by the Kyuubi's chakra. _I'm running out of time. As soon as we finalize this with Mikoto, I'll go to seal the Kyuubi while Jiraiya will prepare Mikoto's child for the sealing. This had better work. We only have one chance to get this right._

Kushina led them into the hospital and up the steps wit out even talking to the nurse. It was obvious she knew where she was going. When she got to the third floor, she turned down a hallway. She stopped in front of a door and looked at her husband. "Well, this is it." She opened the door.

* * *

Five year old Uchiha Itachi held as had against his mother's stomach. He giggled. "Kaa-san, my brother's kicking me!"

Mikoto laughed. "Imagine when he's old enough to play with you."

"Hai, then I won't be lonely." Itachi had a thoughtful look on his face.

"What was that?" Mikoto looked questionably at her son.

"I said I won't be lonely anymore."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know." Itachi sighed. He had always been told that he was extremely observant for his age and wondered how his mother could not have noticed what was going on as he had learned he had gotten his observational skills from her. He decided to explain. "Tou-san has been keeping the other children away from me so that I am not distracted from my training. It's okay because I'm learning a lot, but I some times get lonely. I figure that if I have a brother, Tou-san will not be able to tell him to stay away form me." He stopped and looked at his mother. "Will he?"

Mikoto's lips pursed and she frowned. "Don't worry Itachi. I'll make sure you get to play with your brother. I promise."

"Thanks Kaa-san." Itachi flung his arm around his mother and they hugged.

As they hugged, Itachi thought about his father, Uchiha Fugaku and his mother. They were very different, almost opposites. Fugaku was like fire. He had a quick temper and a fighting style to go with it. In battle he was a fiery maelstrom that quickly assessed the situation and then exploited it in the fastest way possible.

If Fugaku was lake fire, then Mikoto was like water. She was calm and calculating, both on the battlefield and off. She took in every detail of her clan and make decisions based on the facts she saw and not the rumors she heard.

There was one way, Itachi reasoned, that his father and mother were alike. They were both strategists. Different types granted, and in different areas, but they were both strategists. His father, he reasoned, was a strategist as far as people were concerned; he had the counsel eating out of his hand. His mother was a tactical strategist; she was on of the few people who could claim she had beaten a Nara at shogi.

The way they carried out their strategies was very different. Fugaku's strategies relied on Fugaku being stronger then his opponents, either by physical strength or political blackmail, usually both. Itachi knew that if you didn't know what to look for, you wouldn't know about this trap until it was to late. If you did know what to look for, like himself and especially his mother, it was almost easy to avoid.

His mother's strategies were far more cunning that his father's. Her strategies were deep, complicated, and took a long time to set up, but he had never seen any of them not fail unless she wanted them to.

It was for these reasons that Itachi was glad that he took after his mother. He knew that he would grow up with a cool disposition that would let him take down anyone who crossed him with ease. _As long as Tou-san teaches me to fight. His fighting style is more powerful than Kaa-san's. In the long run it will probably be more to my advantage to learn it and then modify it to my own fighting style._

Itachi massaged his brother through his mother's stomach. _Who will my brother take after? Hopefully not Tou-san, one of him is bad enough as it is, but a mix of Kaa-san and Tou-san wouldn't be that bad._ "Kaa-san, when's my brother going to be born?" For the first time in his life, Itachi had a look of impatience on his face. "You said he'd be born last week."

Mikoto laughed. "Your brother will be born when he's good and ready. Not before. Now be patient."

At that moment the door opened and standing in the hall was Namikaze Kushina, Mikoto's teammate; Jiraiya, the gama sennin; and Namikaze Minato; Kushina's husband and Yondaime Hokage. Both Mikoto and Itachi looked shocked. Mikoto was the first to recover.

"Ho... Hokage-sama." Mikoto sputtered, mind working furiously. "You can't be here just for a social visit weeing who's attacking the village at the moment, can you?"

Minato was glad that she did not beat around the bush. "That's right. I'm not here for a social call. In fact the reason why I'm hear is because of who is attacking the village."

"What?" There was total silence in the room. "You are telling me that the reason you are here is because the Kyuubi no Kitsune is attacking the village. Why? I thought you were researching ways to seal it."

Itachi didn't even flinch at the mention of the Kyuubi. He knew of course what was going on in the village, but he wondered why the Yondaime needed his mother. _The Yondaime is stronger than my mother in every respect. What does she have that he does not?_ The answer came soon and it horrified him.

"I was." Minato took a deep breath. "We found a way to seal the Kyuubi. A method called Fuuin Jutsu: Shiki Juuin. It is a method that summons the Shingami himself to seal the souls being sealed into the body of the summoner. While the two souls are fighting over control of the body, the Shingami devours both souls, thus sealing both souls inside his stomach for eternity." He was speaking very fast now, obviously wanting to get his explanation over with. "The Kyuubi is the king of the bijuu and his soul and chakra are so powerful that they would take control of my body before the Shingami could devour us. If I split the Kyuubi's chakra in two and only have one half of the Kyuubi's chakra sealed in me I will be able to hold him until the Shingami devours us. The only way to split the Kyuubi's chakra away from its soul is to seal its soul and half its chakra into a newborn child whose umbilical cord has just been cut so that the Kyuubi's chakra can be absorbed into its own chakra coils. It has to be a newborn because its chakra coil are undeveloped. If I was to seal the Kyuubi's souls and chakra into anyone older, that person's chakra coils would reject the chakra and end up killing the person thus letting the Kyuubi reform and take over my body."

_No_, Itachi thought, _no! He cannot be asking Kaa-san to give him permission to seal the Kyuubi inside my brother. In order to do that he would probably have Kaa-san forcibly five birth to my brother. His wife is pregnant. Why can't he seal the Kyuubi into his own child?_ "Are you so heartless that you would ask someone else to condemn their child to the very fate that you are unwilling to condemn your own son?"

"Itachi!" Mikoto glared at her son. Itachi gasped with horror when he realized what he had just said.

"It's okay." Minato looked thoughtful. "Itachi, there's a reason I can't seal the Kyuubi into my own son. As your mother knows Kushina's five months pregnant with my son. If Kushina were to have him tonight and I were to seal the Kyuubi into him, he wouldn't even survive the initial sealing. If my son was ready to be born, I would gladly seal it into him in fact I would prefer it. I understand why you asked that question and I'm glad you love and care for your brother. If your mother agrees to let me turn your brother in to the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki, he is going to need all the love and care he can get." Itachi nodded in understanding.

Mikoto broke in. "Before I decide to let you do that to my son, I have a few questions for you Minato."

"Of course." Minato looked at Mikoto, relieved that his explanation was over.

"When the Kyuubi is sealed into my son, will he be able to influence the way my son thinks?"

"No. He won't be able to influence your son's soul, at all. His chakra will be a different matter."

"What do you mean?"

"The way I'll seal the Kyuubi into your son will cause him to absorb the Kyuubi's chakra and convert it into his own. It will greatly augment his own chakra reserves."

"Let me get this straight." Mikoto had a sly smile on her face. "My son will be keeping the king of the bijuu from going on a rampage, will not be controlled by it and will get its massive chakra reserves as a bonus. Is that all that will happen to him?"

"Yeah. There's a few more things that will happen to him when he gets older, but they won't change the stuff I already told you. Jiraiya knows exactly what I'm doing and would answer any question you would have."

"Okay." Mikoto nodded. "Well," she said, looking up at every body, "seeing how desperate we all are, and how Minato would sacrifice his own son if the circumstances were different, I"ll let you seal the Kyuubi into my son on one condition. You let me raise him. I know the council well, and they will try to make him into a weapon if they are given the chance. As long as that doesn't happen, I'm fine with him being a jinchuukiri."She looked straight at Minato. "Promise me that I will be allowed to raise my son without interference from them."

Minato looked straight at her. "I promise."

Mikoto smiled and laid back on the bed. "Thank you."

"I assume you want me to help you girth to him, seeing as Tsunade trained me it it when she heard I was pregnant." Kushina got up from the chair where she had been sitting and walked over to Mikoto.

"Of course." Mikoto had a fierce look in her eyes.

At that, everyone started to prepare for the sealing of the Kyuubi. Mikoto kissed Itachi and told him to wait with Jiraiya and Minato until she had given birth. Kushina disappeared into another room and reappeared with a bunch of towels. Jiraiya and Minato cleared furniture next to Mikoto's bed to make room for the connective seal between Minato and Mikoto's child.

"Are we all ready?" Minato asked. Everyone nodded, "Well, I guess this is good-bye then." Minato's eyes started to water. "Jiraiya, thanks for being the best teacher anyone could ever have. Teach my son to the best of your ability. Mikoto, thank you for sacrificing your son to save the village. I wish both you and him a good life. Itachi , jinchuukiri are often hated and lead lonely lives. Love him for who he is not what he holds. He will need that more than anything else. Kushina..." Minato's voice broke. "Kushina, I love you . You've bee the best wife any man could hope to have. Thank you for that and everything else you've done for me. I'm so sorry I'll never get to see our son. Raise him to love Konoha as I do." Kushina and Minato embraced.

"I will, oh I will." Kushina murmured. "I love you so much." Both were silently crying.

"Kushina, I need to go. The sooner I seal the Kyuubi, the more lives I save. Come on, let me go." Kushina and Minato slowly pulled apart. "Well, is there anything else here I need to do?"

"Yeah. I need some of your blood for the seal." Jiraiya held out a glass.

"Oh, right." Minato cut his finger and let some of his blood dribble into a glass. "Well, I think that' s it then. I'll go my office and write out the edict declaring that Mikoto is to retain custody of her son. What else? Jiraiya, I'll send you a messenger toad when I get to the front lines. When it gets here, cut the baby's umbilical cord; I'll seal the Kyuubi soon after that." He turned to face everyone in the room. "Thank you all for your help and sacrifices. Good-bye." Minato turned to Kushina, gave her one long last kiss and went to the door. "One last thing. Jiraiya, tell Kakashi that his heritage is nothing to be ashamed of." With that, he went out into the hall and shut the door. It was the last time any of them saw him alive.

As soon as he left, Kushina rounded on Jiraiya and Itachi. "Why don't the two of you go and draw out the seal on the floor. It will probably take as long as it will take Mikoto to give birth and I really don't want my husband's death to be wasted just because we had bad time management skills."

Jiraiya and Itachi made there way to the space they had cleared on the floor. Kushina pulled the curtain around Mikoto's bed and Itachi heard something about sound-proofing seals being mentioned. A few moments later, Kushina and Mikoto could not be heard.

"Itachi, help me connect these candles to make a star." Jiraiya had placed eight candles equidistant from each other in a circle and was drawing lines between them with chakra-laced ink to make an eight-pointed star. Itachi took a brush and started drawing.

About half an hour later, Kushina poked her head out of the curtains. "Are you done?" They both nodded. "Itachi, do you want to see your brother before the Kyuubi is sealed into him? Mikoto said its okay if you come in." Itachi nodded vigorously and ran between the curtains. Kushina stepped out.

"How are they?"

"Both of them are fine. We decided to go ahead with a C-section because that would be fastest. The umbilical cord's still attached and will remain that way until Minato tells us it's time to cut it."

"Good. What's the baby's name?"

"I don't know." Kushina chuckled. "Mikoto said she wanted Itachi to be the first to know because he was the only one of her family here."

"Speaking of her family, I hope the rest of the Uchihas will be okay with this. Having a jinchuukiri in the family and all."

"I hope so." Kushina sounded hopeful, but she was worried.

* * *

Itachi ducked inside the curtain and went over to the bed. "Kaa-san, where is he?" For one brief moment, Itachi sounded genuinely happy and anxious.

"Right here, do you want to hold him?" Mikoto handed her youngest son over to her oldest one.

Itachi took his brother in his arms and looked at him. The reaction he had was, "Kaa-san, we have a problem."

Mikoto gave him a funny look. "We do?"

"Hai. He looks even more like you than I do." It was true, Mikoto's newborn son had Mikoto's thick bluish-black hair, pale skin and glittering black eyes full of intelligence. Itachi had his mother's looks and skin, but he had is father's grayish-black hair and dull black eyes that were full of cunning.

"Why is that a problem? I look beautiful and you don't look too bad yourself."

"That's the problem. I have fan girls following me everywhere and I'm only five. He'll have an even worse problem."

"Then why don't you give him some of your in valuable tips on how to avoid them." Mikoto laughed. "It can be the first thing you teach him."

Itachi laughed with her. "What's his name?" he managed between laughs.

"Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke."

"I'm sure Tou-san will like the name."

"I hope—"

Kushina stuck her head through the curtains. "Jiraiya just got the messenger toad from Minato. It's time."

"Itachi, could you leave us?"

Itachi nodded and handed his brother back to Mikoto. _That's the last time I am going to see him just as my brother. The next time I will see him he will have the... No! Don't think like that. That's the very thing the Yondaime warned you not to do._ He went out to sit next to Jiraiya. "When do you think this will all be over?"

Jiraiya thought about it for a second. "I'd say less than an hour. If he doesn't do it fast enough, the umbilical cord will seal up and we will be back to square one."

"Here he is." Kushina gave a crying Sasuke to Jiraiya. It was easy to see why he was crying. His umbilical cord had been cut and was still bleeding.

"What's his name?" Jiraiya turned to Itachi for an answer.

"Sasuke."

"It's a good name. Now let's get to work. I still have one more seal to do and it's more complicated then the last one." Jiraiya took Sasuke and went over to the seal on the floor. "Would you bring the Yondaime's blood with you. I need it." he called over his shoulder. Itachi quickly grabbed the glass and in his hurry, he spilled some of the blood over his hand and down his right arm. "And please try not to spill it. It's important and obviously I can't get any more of it."

Itachi looked guiltily down at his arm and pulled his jacket on hiding it from view, deciding that he was lucky Jiraiya was too focused on his brother to see what had happened. He walked over to Jiraiya and handed him the glass. He then sat down on the ground next to the star to watch Jiraiya.

Jiraiya dipped a brush into Minato's blood and proceeded to paint a spiral on Sasuke that started from his naval and circled around itself several times. Around that he painted a ring that was several inches thick. When he was finished, he laid Sasuke in the middle of the star. "Well, that's done. Now all we have to do is wait."

"Wait for what?" Itachi looked at Jiraiya.

"Wait for Minato to do the sealing."

Itachi nodded in understanding. A silence settled over both of them. Itachi watched his brother waiting for the inevitable.

Several minutes later it happened. The ring around the spiral on Sasuke's stomach broke up into individual seal marks. Dark red chakra, the Kyuubi's chakra, pored down from the ceiling right above the seal. The second it hit the seal, it was funneled towards the spiral. It traveled along the spiral to Sasuke's navel where the chakra entered his body. Throughout the entire sealing, Sasuke was crying as if he knew what was happening to him. Five minuets later, the last of the chakra entered Sasuke and he fell fast asleep. The sealing was over.

Jiraiya picked him up and examined the seal. It was blood red as if the lines had just been drawn, but they were dry. Jiraiya smiled, glad that the sealing had worked, and gave him to Kushina. He then proceeded to erase all traces of the seal on the floor. Before he could do that, he needed to move Itachi, who had for some reason fallen as fast asleep as his brother had right next to the exact same seal.

* * *

Itachi knew something was wrong the second the blood on his brother's stomach broke into seal marks. When that happened, he felt the blood he had spilled on his arm lightly burn. With shock, Itachi saw that his arm was somehow inside the seal painted on the floor. When the Kyuubi's chakra touched the seal on his brother's stomach, it also touched the blood on his arm. Pain seared through Itachi's arm like he was being branded. Itachi recognized the feeling. It was not his physical arm that was in pain, but the chakra coils that ran through it. For some reason, the Kyuubi's chakra was flowing through the blood on his arm directly into his chakra coils. That was all Itachi could comprehend until the pain increased to such a degree that he could not think anymore. All of a sudden the pain stopped and Itachi fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

Itachi woke to find himself sleeping on a couch in a hospital room. He looked over to see Jiraiya sleeping in a chair. Kushina was nowhere in sight. He pealed down the right sleeve of his jacket to see if there was anything wrong with his arm. The only thing different about it was a thin, shiny burn scar that ran from the palm of his hand to the crook of his elbow. He smiled. It would be easy to hide and explain away because many of the ninjas in his clan had similar scars from practicing katon jutsu. Once he was convinced that his body had not been hurt, he then checked out if there was any changes to his chakra coils. The first thing he did was mold chakra. That was different then it had been. It didn't feel as if the chakra had changed, but his reserves were greater, and he was not as tired as he should be. Satisfied that he hadn't been hurt, Itachi started to figure out how long he had slept. Fortunately, Kushina entered the room.

"How long have I been asleep?"

Kushina walked over to him. "About eight, nine hours."

"So, what time is it?"

"About nine-thirty A.M."

Itachi nodded and remembered she had had his brother last. "Do you know where my brother is?"

"He's with your mother, but he hasn't woken up from the sealing yet."

"Is he okay?"_ If me and him fell asleep at around the same time, he should be waking up soon._

"Oh, he's fine. Do you want some water?" she was going to the sink already.

"Hai, please."

Kushina got two glasses of water and sat at the end of Itachi's couch. She gave one to him and started drinking her own glass.

"What happened last night after the sealing?" Itachi asked after he had had a drink.

"Well," Kushina took a deep breath. "After all the Kyuubi's chakra had been sealed into Sasuke, both you and him fell asleep. Jiraiya looked at Sasuke's seal and said that everything worked out exactly as it was supposed to and would fade in a couple of days. Jiraiya gave him to me so that he could clean up the seal on the floor. I gave Sasuke to Mikoto who took him went to sleep with him right next to her. You had fallen asleep right next to the seal so Jiraiya picked you up and put you on the couch. After that me and him washed the floor, threw away the candles and rearranged the furniture. If you hadn't been here last night, you would never know what happened. Jiraiya then went out to explain the situation to Sarutobi. After a few hours, he got back and said that everything had been taken care of. He sealed the door so nobody could get in and said it was high time that both me and him got some sleep. That was probably four hours ago. Is there anything else you want to know?"

"Hai." Itachi looked worried. "Does Tou-san know what happened?"

"I don't— " A sharp knock on the door interrupted them.

Kushina got up very slowly. "Who is it?"

"Uchiha Fugaku. I don't know who you are, but let me in so I can see my wife." The voice had a harsh tone to it.

Kushina took her time to reach the door and open it. Fugaku quietly slipped into the room. He raised an eyebrow at Itachi, silently asking him why he was there. Itachi ducked his head. He had no answer. Kushina disappeared inside the curtain surrounding Mikoto's bed. Voices could be heard behind it. Kushina then reappeared and said, "She'll let you in." She pulled the curtains back from the bed to reveal Mikoto and Sasuke.

Fugaku went over to his wife and son. He looked pleased at the sight of the both of them. He held out his hands to his wife. Mikoto, used to the silent ways of her husband, knew what he wanted and placed Sasuke in his hands. Fugaku looked him over and, for the first time in a long while, genuinely smiled. He moved to give him back to Mikoto and as he did, he noticed something on the newborns stomach. He bared Sasuke's stomach, leaving the seal in full view. In an instant his face was full of rage and fury and his killing intent paralyzed everyone in the room.

When his father's killing intent filled the room, Itachi looked at him and saw that what he had feared had happened. Fugaku had found out that the Kyuubi's had been sealed into Sasuke and did not agree with his wife's decision. He saw Fugaku hold his brother in one hand with the seal in plain view while his other hand was by his side right next to where his kunai holster was strapped to his leg. Itachi feared for his brother when he saw that. Fugaku was one of the best kunai users in the clan, and he never missed.

"Mikoto," Fugaku's voice boomed in the silence. "I will give you a choice. You can let the child go and remain Itachi's mother, my wife and an Uchiha or you can remain this child's mother and let Itachi, me and the Uchiha go. Choose." As soon as he said the last word, he grabbed a kunai and slashed it through Sasuke's eyes.

_No, not his eyes, not his eyes._ Itachi gasped in horror at what his father had done. His father had slashed out his brother's eyes. In his clan, loosing your eyes meant more than just loosing an organ. It meant permanently loosing the sharingan, the one trait that defined who was an Uchiha and who was not. By slashing his son's eyes, Fugaku had taken his sharingan and declared that Sasuke was not a member of the Uchiha clan.

Itachi looked at his mother. She first looked at Sasuke with sorrow and then at Fugaku with anger. Then she looked at Itachi and the look on her face said 'I'm sorry'. Itachi nodded in agreement. He knew who she was choosing to stay with and he completely agreed with her. _Better for her to stay with him than me. Without her, he has no one while I still have the clan._

Mikoto looked back at her husband and said, "If that is the only choice you give me I will go with him. Not because I love him more than I love you or Itachi, but because he has no one else beside me who will care for him." With that she took Sasuke from Fugaku and gave him to Kushina. "Would you please take him and wash him up for me. And don't take him back here until Fugaku is gone?"

Kushina nodded and took Sasuke out of the room. Itachi would not be this close to his brother again for many years.

Once she had left, Fugaku rounded on Mikoto. "Seeing as you were my wife, I guess I'll let you keep your eyes." He put the bloody kunai back into its holster. "But don't expect the Uchiha do anything for you. Itachi!" he turned to his oldest son. "We're leaving."

"Tou-san," Itachi began, "can I say go—"

"No! As of now this woman has no relationship to you."

"Hai, Tou-san." Those were the hardest words Itachi had ever said.

"Now let's leave. There is nothing more to do here." He swept out of the room followed by Itachi. When Itachi passed by his mother he gave one last look at her. It was the first time he had ever seen tears in her eyes.

Itachi didn't see anything as he fallowed his father back to the compound. Instead he was having an intense mental battle. At the end of it he came to several conclusions. _I will never take anyone's word for the truth until I have tested it myself. The only person who will determine how I will act is me and me alone. If I follow someone else's advice it will not be because they said so. It will be because I happened to come to the same conclusion they did_. Itachi's childhood ended when he saw his fist battle, but today was the day when he became an adult.

* * *

After Fugaku left with Itachi, Mikoto just sat and silently cried until she heard a knock at the door. She quickly dried her tears and told the person to come in. Kushina came in with Sasuke. "How is he?"

Kushina gave Sasuke to his mother who began to nurse him. "He's completely blind. He'll be able to get them replaced though so that's not too bad and I healed all the facial wounds so that's not a problem. The only thing that will be different is that he won't have the sharingan. Why didn't Fugaku take your eyes?"

"Being the wife of the clan head does have its perks." Mikoto took a deep breath. "I suppose I'm going to have to find a new place."

"You are?" Kushina gave her a funny look.

"Well, yes. I need a place to live, but nobody is going to want to take me in now that Fugaku has cast me out of the clan."

"I don't know about that." Kushina had a smile on her face.

"Huh?"

"Mikoto! We've been on the same team since we've been gennin. You didn't possibly think that I wouldn't let you say in the Namikaze compound did you." Kushina looked at her friend in disbelief.

"Wouldn't we get in you way?"

"Mikoto," now Kushina looked sad, "the only living Namikaze will be born in approximately five months. The only person who would be living there besides me would be Yamato, Kakashi's ANBU squad mate. We have so much room you could have your own house and I'm sure Yamato would like to have a younger brother as a distraction."

"How hard is it to get into your compound from the rest of the village?"

"If you are asking if people will be able to come into the compound to hurt Sasuke in some way, that's impossible. Minato was a seal master and he rigged the walls so that they would provide the ultimate defense for assassinations because Iwa has been attempting to slaughter the clan since the Third Shinobi war broke out. Once he gets inside the compound anybody who wants to kill him won't be able to get in. And that's if they're able to jump the ten foot wall around the entire compound; there's no front entrance"

"How could you function without a front entrance?" Mikoto laughed.

"When your clan's small and everyone in it is a shinobi for some odd reason nobody has a problem climbing a ten foot tall wall." Both Kushina and Mikoto laughed.

"Yamato, he's that mokuton user, right?"

"Yeah."

"What's he like?"

"He's a nice guy. He understands what it's like to viewed as an oddity and not a person. He'll probably have a lot in common with Sasuke and he definitely won't hate him."

"Well, it sounds like a good idea. I guess I'll move in sometime next week then."

"Sounds good."

A groan was heard from behind the chair. "What did I miss?" Jiraiya's head could be seen moving behind the chair. Kushina and Mikoto looked at each other. The next couple of hours were going to be a nightmare.

* * *

A tall man with long black hair made his way stealthily through a breach in Konoha's city wall made by the Kyuubi. He turned back to his apprentice. She had spiky purple hair and was young, to young to be in the academy, but she was a genius like him and so smart that it almost scarred him."Come on. We have to hurry. We don't want to get caught." It was time to leave Konoha for good.

* * *

The great beast roared in anger. He was stuck inside that wretched world again. That wretched world with the red sky and the black moon that was covered by gray clouds that looked like tattered rags. At least the last time he had been free. Yes, he had been in torment, but it had been free. Now it was locked up behind iron bars in a cave in the side of a cliff. At least the fool who had locked him up in here had given him a lake in the back of the cave that showed him what was happening in the outside world. The great beast decided to make the best of it. He curled around himself and went to sleep. He never noticed that in this world black and white were not inverted.

* * *

A/N: I hoped you liked it. This is my first FanFic and I could use some advice on what I did right, what I can do better, etc. Thanks for reading!


	2. Walking Through Memories

AN: Many thanks to all who read this and a special thanks to my two reviewers

lindon2: thanks for telling me you like it!

Baka of the Funk: thanks for the corrections! By the way, yes it is Orochimaru and Anko in the second to last paragraph, it's the Kyuubi in the last one if anyone was confused about that. No, it's not a Yamato/Mikoto pairing, but she will be paired with someone.

Sorry this is out so late. My computer was blocking this site so I was writing and doing Naruto quizzes on facebook at the same time! (According to the quizzes my chakra affinity would be raiton, my signature jutsu would be Doton: Yomi Numa (that is my actual favorite jutsu) and my rank would not be a normal rank: I'd be a nukenin!) My computer is not blocking it out anymore so I won't do the sloppy job of posting really quickly and then forgetting a section at the end again. Sorry! Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 2**  
Walking Through Memories**

Four years later

Two boys chased each other through the streets of Konoha. They "quietly" ran through the residential sections moving fast enough so it would be to much of a bother to catch them. In the market square, they ducked under tables, dashed through stalls, and wove through people.

Everywhere they went they got the same reactions. People's reactions to the first boy were ones of love and acceptance. When he knocked into people or crashed into stands people would laugh and tell him it was no problem. Their reactions to the boy chasing him were the complete opposite. The reactions he got were those of annoyance at best and those of hatred at worst. If he happened to crash into people or stalls, they would yell at him and sometimes beat him.

"Got you." The second boy caught up to the first boy and tackled him to the ground. The two boys laughed as they rolled around in the dirt, each trying to get in a random kick or punch.

The first boy had bright blond spiky hair that stuck out everywhere. Cheerful sky blue eyes complemented his heavily tanned face. He wore a burnt orange t-shirt with the kanji for Namikaze on the back and black shorts with orange stripes down the sides. He had either not worn shoes or had lost them in the chase. This was Namikaze Naruto, the son of Namikaze Minato and beloved of the village.

The second boy was very different than Naruto. He had soft bluish-black hair that hung about his face and shoulders and intelligent black eyes that contrasted greatly with his pale skin. He was dressed the same as Naruto except his t-shirt was dark blue instead of orange and his shorts had no stripes. He also wore a pair of black shinobi sandals. This was Namikaze Sasuke, the disowned son of Uchiha Fugaku and village pariah of Konoha. He was hated hated as much as Naruto was loved, and just as Naruto could do no wrong, he could do nothing right.

The two boys continued wrestling until Naruto managed to pin Sasuke to the ground. "I win!"

"No you don't," said Sasuke after thinking for a bit. He had a sly smile on his face. "You said the person who got to the Hokage Tower first would win. We're all the way in the market."

"Darn. Got out of it again." Naruto dropped Sasuke and ran off in the opposite direction. "See you at the tower!"

"Hey! At least give me a fair start!" Sasuke chased after Naruto. He found himself going toward the older section of Konoha. Sasuke liked this area. Many of the older clan's compounds were located here, so there were more shinobi than civilians. Evan though he didn't know why they disliked him, Sasuke saw that both shinobi and civilians hated him, but the shinobi hated him less, or at least they never physically took it out on him. Any area that had more shinobi than civilians Sasuke liked.

He turned a corner and swore when he saw what area Naruto had led him to. He knew more of the layout of Konoha than Naruto did, because he had actually bothered to memorize a map of Konoha's streets. Naruto was currently faster than him, but because Naruto had learned his way around Konoha through trial and error, he did not know where he was going half the time. This meant that Naruto had not led him to this area on purpose. Sasuke wished Naruto had, a pranking war would have been started.

The area Naruto had unknowingly led Sasuke to was one of the worst places for Sasuke to be. He was currently a the border of the Uchiha district. His mother had warned him repeatedly to stay away from all the Uchihas and the fact that the few civilians in the clan beat him more than anyone else did only reinforced her warning.

He turned down a back alley that skirted the entire district. It had buildings on one side and the wall that went around the Uchiha district on the other. He planned to follow the alley until it got to one of the streets that connected to the main square where the Hokage Tower was.

After he had been running down the alley for a ways, he turned a corner and bumped into someone. Not looking to see who it was, Sasuke ran on passed him. The man gave a sharp whistle and three men jumped over the Uchiha wall in front of Sasuke. Sasuke swerved to avoid them, but they caught him and threw him to the ground. Two of them picked him up and held his arms while the man who had whistled came and pulled Sasuke's chin up so he could look Sasuke in the eye. Sasuke's blood ran cold when he saw that the person he was looking at had the sharingan. He quickly looked at the other three men and saw that all of them had the sharingan. The man holding Sasuke's chin pulled out a kunai. By now, Sasuke was frozen with fear; he knew the Uchiha hated him more than anyone else, but they had never gone this far and he was now at their mercy.

"Well..." the Uchiha with the kunai looked at the weapon and then at the men holding Sasuke captive. "I suppose we should finish what Fugaku started." The man laughed as he brought the kunai towards Sasuke's bare throat. Sasuke squirmed, but he was held too tightly and the men just laughed at him.

One of the men holding him said, "We should take him inside the compound. We don't want him to call for ANBU. And besides, what is clan business stays clan business; the Hokage cannot interfere by law."

"Excellent idea," the one with the kunai said. "Knock him out. We don't need him knowing how to leave the compound." The other man quickly pressed the correct pressure points on Sasuke's neck and Sasuke blacked out.

* * *

Mikoto finished cleaning up the lunch table and collapsed on the sofa with a glass of iced tea. It was hard to believe that four years ago she had moved into this house with Sasuke. T_he events after the sealing were certainly very interesting,_ Mikoto reflected.

After Minato had been found dead on the battlefield, the council had held an emergency meeting and declared Sarutobi Hiruzen as Hokage again. To his credit, he said nothing about how the Yondaime had actually stopped the Kyuubi although it later became apparent he had known exactly how the Yondaime had stopped it. All he said at that meeting was that the Yondaime had stopped it at the cost of his own life. The meeting was adjourned and Sarutobi said he had some paperwork to do as the newly reappointed Hokage.

Everything was going fine until Fugaku somehow got word that his wife had gone into labor the night before. It was then that the situation spiraled out of control. Somehow, Fugaku had seen the Fuuin Jutsu: Shiki Juuin before and recognized its seal on his son. He immediately called another emergency meeting after he had disowned his second born son and divorced his wife. At the meeting, he publicly announced what his son was and what he had done to both him and his wife. He then demanded if Sarutobi had known how the Yondaime had sealed the Kyuubi. Sarutobi admitted that he had known, but he had kept silent about it in the hope that Sasuke could have a normal childhood. The rest of the council wondered who would be taking care of Sasuke and some, particularly Danzo, had wanted him turned into a living weapon. That was when Sarutobi stepped in and showed the council Minato's last decree. It declared that Sasuke was to be raised by Mikoto without interference from anyone else. That ended the discussion. Sarutobi then revealed that he had also just signed into effect a bunch on new laws pertaining to Sasuke. The effects of those laws was that no one could tell anyone born after the Kyuubi event that Sasuke was the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki or that he and his mother had been disowned from the Uchiha clan and that no one could kill him. Unfortunately for the council, all the new laws had been signed by the Hokage so they could not repeal them.

In the coming weeks, a lot of things happened. First, Tsunade showed up. She said that she had heard about the Kyuubi attack where she was (she never said where she had been, much to Jiraiya's annoyance) and had come to help with the wounded so Konoha wouldn't lose any more shinobi. Everybody was glad she came back. Then, Orochimaru didn't turn up. It was perfectly normal for him not to be seen for days at a time, so nobody noticed until a full month after the Kyuubi attack that he was truly missing. Not very many people minded that he was gone.

During this time, Mikoto and Sasuke moved into the Namikaze compound. The compound was a lot smaller than most of the clan compounds and in an entirely different section of the city. This was because they had come to Konoha after the first shinobi war had been fought, much later than most of the clans had come.

When the Namikaze first came to Konoha, the clans tried not to judge them, but it was hard given the Namikaze's history and the fact that most people didn't think that the Namikazes were even a clan. Back before the time of the elemental nations, the Namikaze were know as being the smartest group of mercenaries money could buy. The Uchiha and Senju were the strongest clans in military might by far, but if an organization needed a group of powerful shinobi that thought outside the box and could do the impossible, they would hire the Namikaze. At that time, the Namikaze were more of group of shinobi than a clan. They were known for accepting people whoever they were, and did not care who married who. It was said that someone from every other clan had married into theirs.

When the elemental nations were established, the Namikaze continued to be a mercenary group until the first shinobi war. During the war, they split up and were hired by every side. Many people hoped they had finally split apart for good until the war ended and the leader of the Namikaze asked the Sandaime if they could settle in Konoha. He explained that the Namikaze were tired of wandering and wanted to settle down. In order to decide which village they would settle in, they had fought for each village and voted for their favorite. The Sandaime excepted them with open arms and gave them land to build a compound. The ninja didn't like this at first; many of their friends and relatives had been killed by the Namikaze in the war. The thing they didn't like the most was that the Namikaze didn't care about clan purity. They still accepted anybody into their clan regardless of background and the clan was filled with Kirinin who escaped their village's kekkei genkai wars. Behind their backs, the Namikaze were called the village's pariahs. By the time of the sealing of the Kyuubi, it was a respected clan among leaf shinobi. All that was lost when they took in Mikoto and Sasuke.

Mikoto laughed to herself when she remembered how people's opinions of her changed. Most people hated her. The Yamanaka dubbed her the demon bitch and Sasuke the demon brat. Because the Yamanaka were Konoha's rumor mill, the entire village called them that. Other than the Uchiha, they were the only ninja clan that hated her. Most of the ninja just ignored both her and Sasuke when they could and acknowledged them only when they had to. All the clans fell into this category in one form or another except the Nara clan. They and the ANBU understood what she had done, and why she had done it. Those few people made living in Konoha bearable. The Nara invited her and Sasuke over for dinner at least once a week to catch up on news and play shogi. When she went back to the ANBU, they accepted her. Kakashi even went up to her and gave her a complement on what she did when he told her that she had the same un-Uchihaness that the rest of her side of the family did. The Naras and the ANBU were the only people who acknowledged her and Sasuke consistently.

In the months following the Kyuubi attack, Konoha was gradually rebuilt and life returned to normal. The entire village celebrated when Naruto, the Yondaime's heir was born. After that, Tsunade and her new apprentice, Shizune, left the village. Tusanade publicly said she left to research different methods of healing, but to Kushina and Mikoto she said she left because she could not stand the hypocritical way the villagers treated Naruto and Sasuke. After she left, Jiraiya did the same thing to attend to his spy network. Before that, he made sure that Sasuke's seal was holding correctly. Many men tried to interest Mikoto into marring them, but she rejected them all because most of them just wanted to have heirs that had the sharingan. The few men she did like never asked her to marry them because they knew she was too concerned with Sasuke's safety for marriage just yet. In order to bring in an income for both of them, Kushina and Mikoto both re-joined ANBU as guards of the Hokage. _Speaking of which, the boys should be there by now to meet Kushina. I should go catch up to them. Who will get there first this time? _Mikoto left her house and climbed the wall to go to the Hokage Tower.

* * *

When Sasuke woke up he saw that he was in a part of Konoha he had never been in before. He was lying on the ground with his hands tied behind his back in an old training ground by the side of a road. He could tell it was old because it was filled with trees that were older than the Kyuubi attack. He looked around and saw the four men sitting a ways away from him.

As soon as they saw that he was awake, they came over to him. The four of them each pulled out a kunai. The man who had held his chin in the ally came up to him and lifted Sasuke's shirt up to expose his stomach. He held his kunai up to Sasuke's navel. "Don't worry. We will finish you off demon. But who said we would do it painlessly?" He brought down the kunai on Sasuke's stomach.

"What are you doing?" an emotionless voice was all that stopped Sasuke's stomach from getting ripped open.

Fear rippled through the men around Sasuke. "I- Itachi, what are you doing here?" one of the men asked.

"I was coming back from receiving my chunin vest." Sasuke had never heard anyone sound so emotionally dead. "I suggest you leave." Itachi went on. "If the Hokage finds out what you are doing, he will disband the clan. Leave." The last word was filled with authority that dared not be tested.

One by one the men slowly sheathed their kunais and left the training ground. When they were gone, Sasuke felt a pair of hands slip under his back and untie his hands. When he was free, he sat up and got his first look at whoever Itachi was.

What he saw astounded him. He had been expecting an adult shinobi. What he instead saw was a young boy who looked about ten years old. He had pale skin and black hair that was very similar to Sasuke's, but his hair went down past his shoulders. If his black eyes were not void of emotions, he and Sasuke could have been brothers.

"If you're only a kid, why did they leave when you told them to?" Sasuke looked at Itachi with confused eyes.

"They left because I am Uchiha Itachi, the son of the head of the Uchiha clan, Uchiha Fugaku."

As soon as he heard who Itachi was, Sasuke got up and tried to run away. He went no more than five feet before Itachi caught him and turned him around to face him.

"Why do you fear me if I saved you from being killed?" Itachi had backed Sasuke into a tree. There was no way for Sasuke to avoid his question.

"Kaa—" Sasuke gulped. "Kaa-san told me to stay away from the Uchiha because they don't like me for some reason." _And because they might try to hurt me._ But Sasuke didn't want to tell Itachi why he thought his mom had warned him to stay away.

Itachi's eyes narrowed at this and his dreaded sharingan activated. "That is a good reason to stay away from the Uchiha, but you do not need to fear me." With that he caused Sasuke's black eyes to meet his sharingan and Sasuke quickly fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

Itachi quickly picked up Sasuke and shunshined to his room. Once he got there he laid his brother on his bed and silently cried, something he had not done since his brother had been born. Ever since his mother had left the clan, Fugaku had trained him to be the perfect shinobi, an emotionless killing machine. He had succeeded in doing so not because he had broken Itachi, but because Itachi had seen the wisdom in being able to be emotionless when he had to and had willingly gone along with it. Instead of loosing his emotions, Itachi had learned to hide them in such a way that it appeared to every body that he had lost them. Only a select few, such as the Hokage, knew that he still had them. _Even with all my training I still can't control myself when it comes to my brother. _When Itachi had seen what was going on in the training field, it had taken all his control to not kill the four shinobi that were threatening his brother.

After he had stopped crying, Itachi went over to look at his brother. Sasuke looked so innocent while he was sleeping that Itachi had a hard time believing that anyone would want to harm him let alone kill him. From what he saw in the village however, he knew Sasuke had had a difficult time growing up. _How has he stayed the cheerful little kid he is? How I wish I could see how he grew up. Wait a minute, why don't I use that method?_

That method was something Itachi had developed as a way to read a person's mind even if you weren't a Yamanaka. It worked because people's memory's were stored in literal vaults: large rooms lined with numbered doors that led to different memories. You started at the door marked as the first memory because it was the only one that was unlocked, experienced it and then found yourself back in the central vault. Now the door marked as the next memory was unlocked and you could experience that one. In between doors, you could stop and take a brake to think about what you had learned, but you could not go through a memory twice and you could not skip a memory; the doors only opened in sequence. The only problem was that instead of being able to look for the information you wanted, you had to watch the person's entire life from the moment they were born to the moment you found whatever information you were after. _I can't use it in most situations, but for what I want right now, it's perfect._

Itachi bit is thumb and spread his blood in a straight line across his brother's forehead. After that he put his hand on the blood and whispered "Hijutsu: Omoi Sansaku no Jutsu." He blinked his eyes and found himself inside Sasuke's memory vault.

* * *

Mikoto entered the Hokage Tower and leaned against a wall to wait for the boys. A few minutes later Naruto ran in.

"Hah! I won." He announced to everyone in the entrance. Everybody looked at him with shock and ryo changed several hands.

He went over to Mikoto. "Hey Aunty, I'm finally catching up to Sasuke!"

Mikoto ruffled his hair. "Naruto, you can only say that when you've beaten him more times than he's beaten you. Now go and find Yamato, he's hiding from you somewhere."

"What do you mean? 'Go find him?' He's right next to you! Now where's my mom?"

"Right behind you!" Kushina tickled her son's shoulders and he jumped three feet in the air.

"Don't scare me like that Kaa-san!"

"Hey! I'm in ANBU, if I wasn't scary I wouldn't be able to do my job." She smiled at her son while he scowled at her.

"Can we leave now?"

Kushina laughed. "No, since you got here first, you have to wait until Sasuke gets here before you can leave, but I'll let you hang out in here instead of outside."

"Okay!" Naruto ran off to hopefully find some foolish genin to play poker with.

* * *

Ten minuets later they were still waiting.

"Something's wrong." Mikoto put bluntly. "Every now and then Naruto does come in before Sasuke, but Sasuke has never been this late."

"Yeah... Naruto come here!"

Naruto came running at his mother's call. "Are we going yet?"

"No, Sasuke's not back yet. When you guys were racing here, where did you go?" Kushina made it sound like an innocent question.

"Well, first we went to the area where all the shinobi and civilians live, then we went to the market, then we went to the place where all the clans except us live and then we went here."

"Where did you last see Sasuke?"

Naruto screwed up his face in concentration. "On some street near all the compounds. I don't really remember which one. Why?"

"We don't know where Sasuke is." Mikoto said. "If you could—"

"But Sasuke never gets gets lost; he always knows where he is."

"We don't think Sasuke's lost. We think that something happened to him and we need to find out where he last was so that we can help him. Do you think you could show us where you last saw him.?"

"Yeah." Naruto scratched the back of his head. "But I'd have to start from home. I can't find the place from here."

"Okay then," said Kushina. "We're starting from our compound."

* * *

"...we went by this compound and then around here and when I turned this way at this intersection I saw him catching up to me and that was the last time I saw him."

"Thanks Naruto, you've been very helpful." Inwardly, Mikoto was seething. _How could you lead Sasuke here. Even you can't be that much of a blockhead. _The last place Naruto had said he had seen Sasuke was at the intersection where the Uchiha District joined the village. Mikoto had no doubt that some Uchiha was the reason her son had not shown up. _If Fugaku was behind it, boy is he going to pay._ She looked at Kushina and they both nodded in agreement.

"Why don't we all go over to the Nara's." Kushina stated randomly. "We haven't been over to their house yet this week and we need to catch up on work."

"Nice idea." Yamato caught on to what Kushina and Mikoto were doing.

"I thought we were looking for Sasuke?" Naruto looked back and forth between the adults.

"Oh we are. We just want to eliminate all possible locations where Sasuke could be first. Now come on." Yamato put Naruto on his shoulders and the three shinobi jumped across the rooftops to the Nara compound.

When they got to the Nara compound Naruto raced outside to see if there was any possible chance of budging Shikamaru from his spot on the lawn. The adults asked if Shikaku was available to talk to. Fortunately, he decided it was worth the trouble to talk to them when they mentioned that Sasuke had gone missing an hour ago and that the last place he had been seen was near the Uchiha district. When they asked him if he would go with them to see Fugaku he said yes and his wife said that Naruto could spend the night. He even helped them figure out a way to get Mikoto through the Uchiha's guards and to Fugaku undetected by the sharingan. By the time they left for the Uchiha district, Itachi was going into his brother's memory vault.

* * *

Itachi had never seen a memory vault like Sasuke's. As he made his way through his brother's memory vault he wondered what memories his brother could have stored in such a forbidding place. It was a dark, narrow, twisting cave with red light shining down from cracks in the ceiling and, there was no doors. Instead, each memory was contained in a cavern or corridor that led directly from one to the other; there was no break between them. But Itachi only found that out after he had gone through them.

Itachi found himself in a dead end. After taking in his surroundings, he went forward into the first cavern. Instantly he was hit with the memory. Apparently, Sasuke's first memory was of him, Naruto, Mikoto, Kushina and Yamato having dinner together in the Namikaze compound. It was a happy scene, full of laughter and warmheartedness that Itachi knew Sasuke got almost nowhere else.

From there, the memories came at an overwhelming pace, almost as if Itachi was living through them himself. Instead of just focusing on Sasuke, he found himself focusing on the people around him and how they were affecting Sasuke as well.

Itachi could not have asked anything more of his mother or Kushina. Mikoto was everything to Sasuke. She was not just his mother, but his teacher, protector, comforter and friend. She never spoiled him, constantly sacrificed for him and was glad to do both. Kushina also held a place in Sasuke's heart. He saw her as his aunt and enjoyed going over to her house to play with her son and get spoiled.

Much to Itachi's dismay, Yamato did not consider himself Sasuke's older brother. He considered himself a friend, but nothing more. This wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't live with Kushina and consider Naruto his younger brother. From his actions, Itachi deduced that he saw the Namikaze family as the people he was indebted to and should therefore respect and he saw Mikoto and Sasuke as people the Namikazes had taken pity on and regarded them as his equals.

Itachi was glad for Sasuke's sake that he had Naruto, but was worried about Naruto. If it wasn't for Naruto, Sasuke would have had a very lonely life. Because of Naruto, he always a friend his own age to play with, conspire and prank people with, and then get into trouble with. Naruto let Sasuke have a childhood and not to have to look to adults for his only company. But Itachi saw something in Naruto that could potentially grow into a problem. Naruto was loved by the villagers as the son of the Yondaime Hokage and not as Namikaze Naruto. Since he was often considered the 'Uchiha Prodigy' and not Uchiha Itachi, Itachi knew that if Naruto took that love the wrong way he would do anything to prove he was Namikaze Naruto and not the Yondaime's son. Hopefully, Naruto would understand when he got older.

Sarutobi, Itachi decided, could not be blamed for the way Sasuke was treated. He had tried his best to ensure that Sasuke would have a normal childhood and it wasn't his fault that Sasuke would never have that.

He was extremely grateful for the Nara clan and the ANBU. He wasn't at all surprised that they didn't consider Sasuke the Kyuubi in human form at all; the Nara were not known for being the smartest clan for no reason after all and all the ANBU knew the difference between a sealing scroll and the kunai sealed inside it. He was surprised that the Nara went into all the trouble of inviting Mikoto and Sasuke over for dinner once a week. In fact, they seemed to go out of their way to let all the other clans know that they invited them over and that they thoroughly enjoyed it. The ANBU did the same thing as the Nara, only they were non-clan ninjas and gave Mikoto and Sasuke a bigger variety of people to talk to. Itachi thought it was interesting that for the first time in Konoha's history, there were more non-clan ninja in ANBU than there were clan ninja. He would definitely keep that career option open.

The way the other clans and ninjas treated Sasuke annoyed Itachi. He wished they would either hate Sasuke or support him. Most of the time, they stood by and pretended that Sasuke was not even there. They didn't hurt him in any way, but neither did they help him when other people hurt him.

The villagers, Uchiha and Yamanaka made Itachi sick. When ever they saw Sasuke, they tried to hurt him, and some of them tried to kill him. If it wasn't for Mikoto, Kushina, the Nara and the ANBU, he probably would have be dead by now.

Sasuke was the last person Itachi focused on. He was amazed at how perceptible his younger brother was. He had always known that he was different than everybody else and had been trying to find out why just as long. He had long ruled out that it was because he was a kid, a Namikaze and because he didn't know who his dad was. When he couldn't figure it out himself, he asked the few adults around him. When that didn't work (he knew they knew something about it and were lying), he decided to wait until he got more information, but he was constantly thinking about it. Itachi hoped he would overlook the fact that he was born on the day of the Kyuubi attack and that the Uchiha had called him a demon.

When Sasuke wasn't trying to figure out what made him different from everyone else he was using his time to gather whatever information might be useful to him when he became a ninja. When he and Naruto started chasing each other to the Hokage tower, he some how managed to get Mikoto to let him see the ANBU map of Konoha. He quickly memorized all the secret passageways, sewers and hideouts the ANBU used as well as the streets everybody else used. When he went over to the Nara's, he took advantage of their countless books on strategy and learned how to play shogi from the Nara. When his mom invited ANBU friends over to dinner (he was not allowed to listen to what they were talking about), Sasuke would sneak up to the door to listen to what they were talking about. By now Itachi thought he was probably a low B-rank security threat.

Through it all, Sasuke hoped that the reason people treated him differently was good one. If it was a good reason, he had decided that he would be okay with the way people treated him. If it was an unseasonable one, he had decided that he would get revenge on them for the way they had treated him. This was the one time that Itachi could see that Sasuke was Fugaku's son; he hoped for Konoha's sake that Sasuke would not grow up to be like him.

* * *

All of a sudden, the memories stopped and Itachi saw nothing except the labyrinth of Sasuke's mind. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard. After he had caught his breath, he looked around to see where he was. Behind him was the cave that he had come out of. Before him was a corridor leading away from Sasuke's memories. Itachi got up and went through the corridor.

The corridor led him out of the cave and onto a valley ringed with cliffs. Itachi was shocked. _It's even more forbidding then the labyrinth is._ A black moon hung low in a blood red sky. Ragged gray clouds were scattered across the sky and moon. The cliffs around the valley were steep and craggy. Every few feet there was a cave at the base of them. Itachi looked back at the cave he had come out of and saw that above it was the kanji for memory. He looked at the other caves and saw that each of them had a kanji above them as well. In the middle of the valley there was a shallow stream of some dark gray liquid. Itachi began to walk up the valley towards the source of the stream. As he did so he felt a tremor in the ground that increased in intensity as he went up the valley.

The monotony was broken when he came to a cave that looked as if it had collapsed from the inside. The mouth was blocked with rocks that spread out into the valley and stream. Itachi went closer to look at it and froze when he saw the kanji above the cave. Kekkei Genkai. After staring at it in anger for several minutes, he turned and walked up the valley.

After what seemed like hours, Itachi turned a corner and gasped. There was a break in the cliffs on one side of the valley. It was not an ordinary break; it looked as if someone had used a powerful doton jutsu to carve a ragged hole in the cliff. It was here that the stream split. The stream coming from the valley's normal course was filled with a clear liquid, while the fork coming out of the break was pitch black. When they met, the stream turned into the dark gray that it had been for the entire length of the valley. The side valley formed by the break was also where the tremors were coming from; Itachi could see the cliffs on either side of it vibrate. Itachi decided to take a chance and went through the break in the cliffs.

The side valley was not very long. Almost as soon as Itachi entered it, he found himself facing a large cave that looked as if it had been torn out of the rock the same way the side valley was. It was from the cave that the stream and the tremors came from. Itachi got closer to the cave until the only way he could go further was to stand in the stream. As soon as he put his foot in the stream the tremors stopped and a glowing red eye snapped open five feet above Itachi's head. There was a loud rumbling and the eye rose until it was three stories above Itachi. For a moment there was silence. Then with a roar of chakra, a tremendous rumble, and a whirl of fire, the Kyuubi no Kitsune revealed itself in all its glory.

* * *

Omake**  
Sasuke Becomes A Low B-Rank Security Threat**

"Why can't I eat dinner with you guys?" Sasuke pouted.

"Because it's just me and a couple friends from AN- work who are going to be discussing boring work stuff. That's why. Now go to bed." Mikoto shooed Sasuke into his room.

_Something tells me that if they are discussing Kaa-san's work it's not boring. Just because she said I can't be in the room with them doesn't mean I can listen to them outside the room. Maybe if I'm really quiet by the door..._

Sasuke waited until they had all started talking downstairs and then sneaked downstairs to listen from the crack between the door and the wall.

"...like Iwa's assassins aren't up to scratch," someone said. "That's the third attempt they've made on you this year and you didn't even have to use your eye or chidori to take them out," an unfamiliar voice said.

Sasuke giggled. _And she said they would be discussing 'boring work stuff'._

"Yeah. What was that? Are you sure that no one can listen in on us here Mikoto?" said a second unrecognizable voice.

"Yes. For the last time, they wouldn't be able to get beyond the seals on the wall." That was Mikoto.

"But what if they were inside the compound already? You've got enough background chakra coming from the wall seals that if they were quiet and masked their chakra that you couldn't feel them at all." That was the second voice.

"Believe me, nobody could be listening in on us. The seals would identify someone who wasn't keyed into them already. That's why we had these types of meetings here in the first place."

"Well, okay," said the first voice. "You'd know best seeing as you live here. I wouldn't mind having this type of set up around my office at the T&I department that's for sure."

Sasuke didn't bother listening to the rest of the conversation. He was too happy. _As long as I don't make any noise, I can completely get away with this._ He went back to bed.

In the coming years, Sasuke heard about who the ANBU had captured, the torture methods they used, who was on their hit list, who they had quietly caused to disappear and how they caused them to disappear, and the many missions the ANBU unofficially did. For her part, Mikoto wondered why her son had gone from being a morning person to someone who slept in late and blamed it on a growth spurt.

* * *

AN: Name recognition in my next chapter if you can guess who Mikoto is talking to in the Omake and please tell me what I can do better on. Thanks for reading!


	3. Conversation With Kyuubi

AN: I got this out a lot later than I thought I would. I guess I'll blame Ch. 462 of the manga for giving me more background information to add in. That and I'm getting ready to go to college so I didn't find time to write. But, here is!

Reviews:  
girl-of-anime: thanks, and don't worry, this story is far from done!

Mizuki hikari: I liked writing that too. It does get boring when the only mindscape Kyuubi gets sealed up in is a sewer.

xXxJaycee81196xXx: Yes! The first guy is Ibiki. The second guy is Kakashi. Clues for him are that he uses an 'eye', the sharingan and that he has chidori. I got this from the scene in the manga where Itachi tells Sasuke to go to bed and his parents are surprised they didn't hear him. Sasuke will hear a lot of things he shouldn't know this way.

I should warn you that this chapter has a lot of information in it and is very confusing. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 3**  
Conversation With Kyuubi**

"**Who dares trespass into the deepest corners of my prison?!"** the Kyuubi roared, chakra flaring.

Itachi was so scarred he backed up from the cave and fell into the stream flowing from the cave. When he had ventured into Sasuke's mind he never thought that that the Kyuubi no Kitsune would be there. But he now saw what the Yondaime had done. The Yondaime had carved out a place in Sasuke's mind for it and sealed it in there.

He quickly got out of the stream; it was burning hot. The only time he could remember a feeling like this was when the Kyuubi's chakra had been sealed into his brother. This knowledge along with the fact that his right arm was not in any pain made him realize that the black liquid in the stream was the Kyuubi's chakra.

Itachi turned to face the Kyuubi. It was three story tall fox with nine tails that were currently swishing behind it. Fiery blood red chakra swirled around it and through the chakra Itachi could see it's sharp teeth were barred and it's glowing red eyes were filled with anger and malice. The fox made a noise at the same time it moved its head. Itachi realized it was sniffing something.

"**Uchiha,"** said the Kyuubi. It chuckled to itself. **"And not just any Uchiha, but the heir of Uchiha Madara himself." **It laughed insanely. **"So the bastard traps me inside that wretched genjutsu of his again and then has the gall to send his heir to torment me. Oh, that is rich, that is rich."** It paused and looked at Itachi.** "Now if I could just get out of here I would rip you apart!"** It's tails went for Itachi and banged against the iron bars that stretched across the mouth of the cave. **"I swear when I get out of this place I will rid the world of that accursed clan!" **The Kyuubi raised its claws to bring them down on the bars and Itachi activated his sharingan in fear.

As soon as he did so, the Kyuubi changed. Its chakra became less menacing and its eyes lost their angry look. Instead they were filled with confusion. It surveyed its surroundings a couple times and looked outside the cave. It raised an eyebrow. **"Why in all of the Elemental Nations am I sealed in someone's mind? Hold on, hold on,"** it said, holding up a paw and closing it's eyes. **"It's all coming back now."** It shook it's head a couple times and narrowed it's eyes. **"Okay. Why does that Uchiha Madara have to make my life so... difficult?"** It's tone was one of annoyance. "**Hey, you with the sharingan,"** it said, looking with indifference in Itachi's direction.** "Stay here until I get back. Got it memorized?" **Itachi gave it a frightened nod and the great beast disappeared into the back of the cave.

When the Kyuubi left, Itachi could finally move again. To say it had been a nerve racking experience would be an understatement. One moment the Kyuubi wanted his entire family dead; the next it was suffering from memory loss. Itachi's train of thought was derailed when the Kyuubi started talking to itself.

"**Man, the guy who sealed me in here is getting serious points. He really knew how to design a five-star demon containing seal. When I meet up with Ichibi I'm so going to be bragging on him. Now where did he put the... Oh nice! Very clever! I can watch both at the same time."** Itachi sighed in relief. The Kyuubi did not sound very dangerous. He deactivated his sharingan and everything changed.

"**I will pay back the pain you caused me a hundred fold!"** The Kyuubi rammed against the bars and his chakra flared up again. Itachi took a step back and activated his sharingan again. The Kyuubi shook its head and looked angrily at Itachi . **"What did you do that for? Your sharingan are the only things that are keeping me sane! Got it memorized?"**

"H- Hai." Itachi stuttered.

"**Good. Now stay here and keep your sharingan activated until I get back."** The Kyuubi walked back into the cave and Itachi heard it muttering to itself again. **"Now where were those lakes? Oh right, here they are. Now, what's been happening to you since you were born?"** There was silence for a moment and then the Kyuubi started talking. **"You are definitely going on my favorites list... You just went to the top of my hit list... I like you... I hate you... That was mean... Oh, come on... Well the Namikaze fortunately haven't changed... Neither have the Yamanaka, unfortunately... Why did they do that... Oh, that was smart... Nice... That makes a lot of sense... Okay, glad that's done. Now I really need to change before I freak Itachi out any more. At least the style is better than it was."**

In an instant the Kyuubi's chakra vanished. In its place, Itachi detected another chakra source. It was very different than the Kyuubi's chakra. The most prominent difference was that it was human chakra and not demon chakra. It wasn't even a large human chakra source; if someone had that much chakra in Konoha, they would be considered to have no chance of becoming a shinobi. As Itachi was determining this he heard human footsteps coming towards him. He looked up and was taken aback by what he saw.

Standing in front of him was a male human in his early twenties with very long, spiky, blood red hair and teal eyes. A black line ran a few inches down from the center of each eye. Under a black leather jacket, he wore a blood red t-shirt. On the back of the jacket was the kanji for nine in red and on the front of the t-shirt was the kanji for fire in black. He wore a pair of jeans and black shinobi sandals. The man was on the tall side, but not tall enough to draw any extra attention to himself. If Itachi had seen him in a large civilian city, he wouldn't have spared him a second glance. Here in Sasuke's mind though, he looked completely foreign. "Who are you?" Itachi asked.

The man chuckled. "I'm Kyuubi."

"No, you're not."

"Oh believe me, I am. Watch this." The man dissolved into blood red chakra that bubbled up to form the now familiar shape of a nine-tailed fox. Killing intent physically pushed Itachi into a kneeling position. **"Believe me now?"** The Kyuubi grinned. Itachi weakly nodded yes and the Kyuubi's chakra receded into it's human form. "Just for your info, if you had said that in any other place and at any other time I would have killed you. Got it memorized?" Kyuubi sounded as if nothing had happened.

Itachi nodded and got up. "Why do you keep asking that?"

"Asking what?"

"'Got it memorized?'"

"Oh, that. Humans tend to forget what you say unless you either repeat what you said five times over or say something like that the causes them to actually remember what you said the first time. And I really don't like repeating myself. Now that you know why I do that, why don't you ask me whatever questions you might have."

"What?"

"I always try to avoid this..." Kyuubi shook his head. "I mean, you would ask me questions like, why do you have a human form, what was going on when I came in, why did you attack Konoha. Stuff like that."

"Oh." Itachi felt stupid. "Well, if you could answer all of those questions that would be a good starting point. You do know the answers to all of them, right?"

"Unfortunately, I don't... Of course I do!" Kyuubi laughed at Itachi's expression. "Why don't you come and sit down over here. This will take a while in here, but won't take any time outside of Sasuke's head." Itachi went over to where Kyuubi was leaning against the wall of the cave and sat down on the other side of the bars.

"I'll start off with the reason I have a human form because it's the easiest one to explain and because it has the shortest explanation. The main reason I have a human form is to avoid the situation I'm in right now. Most of the bijuu were captured when they accidentally went through a city in demon form that was in between Point A and Point B. If you look like a human and you go through a city, no one bothers you. The other reason is that I find humans fascinating to talk to, but they don't like talking a mountain sized bijuu who leaks demonic chakra for some reason. If you talk to them as a human however, they won't have a problem with you at all.

"The reason why I attacked Konoha and what you saw when you came in are actually related. But the relation between them goes all the way back to the founding of Konoha. That start—"

"You don't have to tell me. I already know." Itachi interrupted. "Oh, sorry."

Kyuubi laughed. "It's okay. Why don't you tell me what you know about it and I'll fill in any blanks that I think there are. It'll be interesting to see what humans say happened," he said to himself.

"Well," Itachi began, "Konoha was founded when the Uchiha clan and the Senju clan formed an alliance with each other."

"Go on," said Kyuubi. He said the same thing after each full sentence Itachi said.

"They had peace until the Uchiha clan got Uchiha Madara exiled for some reason. Madara started causing trouble for the village so the Shodaime decided he had to kill Madara so that there would be peace. The Shodaime ended up fighting Madara and killing him in what is now known as the Valley of the End."

"Okay, you can stop there." Kyuubi paused for a moment. "I would call that a bare bones version of what happened. But is isn't your fault you don't know because Madara obviously didn't tell anyone his side of the story and it sounds like the Shodaime didn't tell how he and Madara fought either."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the Shodaime fought with traditional ninja methods while Madara used me."

"Wait, what?! Madara used you?!"

"Well, actually he forced me."

"How did he do that?"

"With his sharingan. And no, definitely not a normal one." Kyuubi overrode Itachi's question. Kyuubi leaned his head back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. "Back before Konoha was founded, Uchiha Madara killed his best friend to obtain the most powerful form of sharingan in existence, the Mangekyou Sharingan. Besides slowing down action even more and having better copying abilities than the normal one has, the Mangekyou Sharingan produces Amaterasu, a black flame that burns whatever it's aimed at for seven days and nights, it can't be put out by anything; Tsukuyomi, a genjutsu that puts whoever is caught in it at the caster's disposal, it's the most powerful genjutsu in existence and cannot be broken out of by normal methods; and Susano'o, a special ability that changes according to the person, Madara's was a space/time ability that let objects and jutsus pass through him, while his brother's was a space/time ability that let him go from one place to another instantaneously without warning. The only problem with it is that you go blind after continual use.

"After Madara killed his best friend, he took his friend's eyes because when the eyes of the killer turn into the Mangekyou Sharingan, the eyes of the killed turn into the Sakashima Mangekyou Sharingan which is the only natural defense against the Mangekyou Sharingan. Along with slowing down the action and increasing the copying abilities of the sharingan, it puts out Amaterasu, can break out of Tsukuyomi and negates the affects of any Susano'o.

"Once Madara started going blind because of Mangekyou overuse, he manipulated his younger brother, who also had the Mangekyou Sharingan into giving him his eyes because the only way to stop going blind is to take your brother's eyes to replace your own. Now Madara had the Eien no Mangekyou Sharingan, the same as the Mangekyou, but without the blindness. He also gained his brother's Susano'o ability and is unable to be killed except by another Eien no Mangekyou Sharingan user. Fortunately, that's the result of the combining of his and his brother's Susano'o abilities and will never be repeated in anyone else.

"Now Madara had the ultimate offense, and he wanted the ultimate defense. So he replaced his left Mangekyou Sharingan with his friend's Sakashima Mangekyou Sharingan. Now even if anybody did have an Eien no Mangekyou Sharingan, he could defend against them. It turns out that getting a Mangekyou Sharingan affects both your body and your eye; once Madara had Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi he would have them even if he he replaced both Mangekyou Sharingans with normal sharingans. He wouldn't have his Susano'o though.

"By now, Konoha had been formed. Madara was very angry when Senju Hashirama became Hokage. _Why,_ he thought, _should they pick a common ninja when they could pick a god?_ He felt the Uchihas were treated as outsiders and wanted to plan a coup d'etat that would put the Uchiha on top with himself as Hokage. By then the Uchihas were tired of constant war and wanted peace. They betrayed him to the Shodai who exiled him from the village. Once he was out of the village, Madara started attacking Konoha shinobi out of revenge. Obviously, they could do nothing against him. It got so bad that the Shodaime decided he had to finish it once and for all and went out to fight him at the place which is now called the Valley of the End.

"Madara knew this was going to happen and sought to get the most powerful being he could get to fight for him, namely me."

"Hold on a moment." Itachi's head was spinning from the information. "Let me get this straight. Uchiha Madara had a super powered sharingan that could defeat anyone and another super powered sharingan that could not be defeated by anyone."

"Yeah."

"So how did the Shodai beat him?"

"I'll get to that when it comes up. Right now though, I'm at one of the most important parts of my narrative. Madara sought me out and asked me to fight for him. I told him I didn't fight anyone without good reason. He gave me the reason why he wanted to fight Hashirama, and I flatly refused to fight for him. When he—"

"I thought you said he wanted to fight the Shodai because he exiled him from Konoha."

"No, I didn't." Kyuubi laughed. "I told you the Shodai wanted to fight Madara so that he wouldn't bother Konoha again. Got it memorized?"

Itachi smiled at the reference to his short memory. "So what was Madara's reason for fighting the Shodai and why didn't you like it?"

"I didn't like it because Madara is a fatalist." Kyuubi scowled at the memory.

"What do you mean by that?"

"He believes that anything anybody does, is, and will be are determined by things like what family they were born into, where in the family they were born and things like that. He also believes we can't fight fate and we shouldn't try to find a better set of circumstances then the one we find ourselves currently in. It doesn't have an ounce of truth to it whatsoever. I should know."

"Why would that be a reason for him to fight the Shodai?"

Kyuubi sighed. "Do you want another long history lesson?"

Itachi smiled, "Well, you did say that this won't take any time at all outside my brother's body. So yeah, I want another history lesson. Especially if it explains why you are locked up in my brother's body."

"Okay then, but this one starts way back during the time of the Rikudou Sannin, the Sage of the Six Paths."

"He existed?!" Itachi was shocked.

"Of course." Kyuubi was exasperated. "And if you're wondering why I know, I'm a bijuu; I can't die. I was there for the entire thing. Actually, this starts when the Sage was dying and was picking which one of his sons would succeed him.

"The oldest son had inherited his father's eyes, including a dojutsu, powerful chakras and spiritual energy. He believed that the way to peace was through force and intimidation. The youngest one had inherited his father's body, including a kekkei genkai, life force and physical energy. He believed that the way to peace was through love and trust. When the time came to chose a successor, the Sage felt that it was through the younger son that peace would come and choose him as his successor.

"When the older son heard his younger brother would succeed the Sage he attacked him and promised him that there would be no peace between them until the older son and his descendants would wipe the younger son and his descendants off the face of the earth. Since that time the two son's descendants have fought each other. The name of the older brother was Uchiha and the name of the younger brother was Senju." Kyuubi stopped and looked directly at Itachi. "Do you see what Madara thought and why I refused to fight for him?"

Itachi looked away in contemplation. "Yes. He thought that he and the Shodai had been fated to fight each other because since the day they had been born and the only thing that they had no control over was the outcome. Because he wanted to ensure victory for himself he sought you out because you are the most powerful being in existence. I'm guessing that you disagreed with that because you know that a person's fate is not determined by where they are born, but by the actions they take." He looked at Kyuubi. "Is that why?"

Kyuubi nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Now where was I..." He leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. "Oh right, I had just told Madara that I wouldn't fight for him. When he heard that he said: 'You will whether you want to or not,' and looked me in the eye with active sharingan and said, 'Tsukuyomi.' I was thrown into the genjutsu.

"Never have I been so helpless in my entire existence. It is painfully obvious that you are in a genjutsu, but there is no escape like there should be. The entire time we were in there, he had complete control of the environment and through that, complete control over my physical body. While he had control of me, he made me fight the Shodai. If it wasn't for the Shodai's mokuton, I doubt he would have survived.

"While he was making my body fight the Shodai, Madara was also fighting me. Fortunately for me, Madara is as cocky as he is a fatalist and thought that while my body was under his control, my mind would also be. While he held me captive in Tsukuyomi, he attempted to go into my mindscape in much the same way you did and force me to revel to him all that I knew about the shinobi arts. After a while he managed to do it. Unfortunately for him, it backfired and I ended up in his mind where I quickly forced him to reveal all he knew about his dojutsu along with his strengths and weaknesses. That's how I know all that stuff about the Mangekyou Sharingan and what his eyes' powers are.

"Once I had finished getting all the information I wanted from him, I knocked him out inside his mind which threw me out of Tsukuyomi and gave the Shodai the chance to supposedly kill him. Once I was in control of my own body again, I resumed human form and healed the Shodai. I quickly explained to him what had happened and he let me go because I didn't hold a grudge and wasn't a danger to him or Konoha.

"After he left, I stuck around the Valley of the End because I had some unfinished business to attend to with Madara that I wanted to finish before he regained consciousness and before his Susano'o abilities started working again. I went over to him and plucked his Sakashima Mangekyou Sharingan from his skull and destroyed it with my chakra to assure that it would never work again. That woke him up and he disappeared to who knows where before I could take his Mangekyou Sharingan. And that ends my version of the founding of Konoha and the aftermath." He stretched and looked at Sasuke. "What do you think?"

Itachi blinked. He had been so engrossed in the story that he hadn't noticed when Kyuubi had finished. "What do I think? Well, it fits with what everybody is told happened and it explains what you were saying when you first saw me, but you said you were sane the entire time you were in Tsukuyomi and it doesn't explain why you attacked Konoha four years ago."

"You're right, it doesn't. But if you want to know why I attacked Konoha four years ago, you need to understand what happened at the Valley of the End. Got it memorized? And why don't we get to that seeing as you now have all the necessary background information.

"For the next, lets just say a hundred years, I traveled around, visited each hidden village as it got started, talked with my fellow bijuu, laughed when I heard they got captured, visited them when they got sealed into jinchuuriki, gave away technique ideas to my all time favorite clan, the Namikazes\, and—"

"Wait, why are the Namikaze your favorite clan?" Itachi wanted to know if it was just a coincidence that the Namikazes took his brother in or not.

Kyuubi smiled. "If you're thinking that I had something to do with the fact that they took your brother in, I didn't. But they took him in for the same reason I liked them so much. All they care about is what your actions say about you and not what your background is. They're as far from Madara's way of thinking as anybody could possibly be. Which is probably why I ended up marrying one of them, but that's a different story.

"That was how life went until sometime four years ago in the spring when I met up with Madara in the Kaminari no Kuni. Or rather he met up with me. He had been searching for me for the past decade and didn't find me until he heard rumors of a katon user who's skills surpassed those of everyone. Knowing that fire's my favorite chakra nature to use and that I can't help showing it off he thought it would be me and came to investigate. He was right of course and I set out to finish what I'd started. It turned into a full on duel and because of his blasted Susano'o he managed to get through my defenses and into my mindscape where he entrapped me in Tsukuyomi again.

"Unfortunately for me he had not been idle during the last century. Instead, he had been going over the fight with the Shodaime and learned what his mistakes were that time and had figured out ways to avoid them. When he first pulled me into Tsukuyomi, he was there. But before I could go into his mind he left, but he still had control of my body somehow. The last memory I have of being sane in there was trying to break out of it by force. I probably went insane when I realized I was imprisoned in that wretched world and I couldn't get out. It's my greatest fear. Fortunately, I still have memories of what happened once I went insane, but I see them through a red haze." By now Kyuubi was talking in a very quiet, slow voice and had buried his head in his hands. Itachi leaned closer to listen.

"Once I went insane, it seems I forgot what I thought about the shinobi world. I knew the information about it, but I didn't know what I loved and what I hated. I did know that there was something wrong with me and that Madara was the cause of it.

"Once Madara was confident that I could not regain my sanity he let me out of Tsukuyomi. He had steered me toward Konoha during the time I was in Tsukuyomi and told me that after I destroyed the village, he would undo what he had done to me. Since I didn't know any better I believed him and started to attack the village. Before I could get to close to the village though, a man, who seems really familiar now for some reason, started attacking Madara. If anyone could have killed Madara without the Eien no Mangekyou Sharingan, it would have been him because he had some jutsu that was faster than Madara's Susano'o. Because of that he was able to land a hit on Madara. The hit knocked Madara out long enough that the man could do the Fuuin Jutsu: Shiki Juuin and trap me in here.

"When I got in here I was still insane and was outraged because I thought that I was in Tsukuyomi again."

"You thought you were in Tsukuyomi again? Why?" Itachi was almost afraid to ask the question.

Kyuubi looked up. "The caster of Tsukuyomi has complete control over every aspect of it, time, place etc. But there are some things in it that cannot change no matter what they do and those things let the person trapped in it know that they are in an genjutsu. The sky will always be blood red, there will always be a moon somewhere in the sky and it will always be black, and there will be gray clouds in the sky that look like tattered rags." He and Itachi looked at each one of them as he talked about them. "There is one thing that is in Tsukuyomi that is not in your brother's mindscape and I am very glad that that is not the case. Unfortunately, I did not notice it when I first got here because I was so angry."

"What is that?" Itachi bit his lip.

"In Tsukuyomi, colors are reversed. Black is white and white is black. Here at least everything is the correct color even if it is illuminated by the red light of the sky. Now let me continue; I'm almost done.

"Once I got here, I cursed Madara for trapping me in his genjutsu again and decided to sleep until I got strong enough to break out of here. I woke up when I felt you disrupt the flow of chakra coming from me. And you know the rest." Kyuubi leaned against the wall and focused his intense eyes on the black moon.

Itachi turned around and leaned against a bar and stared at nothing in particular. _He's innocent. It was Madara that attacked the village, probably out of revenge, not him. He was just a tool. And he knows more about the sharingan then is in the clan library probably. _Then a scary thought ran through his mind and Itachi felt a chill go up his back at the thought of it. _Madara is still alive. As long as he is still alive he will continue to try to destroy Konoha._ He knew what he had to do. He turned to Kyuubi. "Why did you become sane when I activated my sharingan and go insane again when I deactivated it?"

Kyuubi was biting his nails which seemed to grow at a faster rate then normal. After a long time of thought he said, "The cause of my insanity is the sharingan. Specifically Uchiha Madara's sharingan. It seems that seeing a sharingan in my jinchuuriki's mindscape undoes the effect on my mind as long as the sharingan is activated. I have seen many sharingans outside of this mindscape and have never gone sane."

Itachi thought about the answer. "Is there a way then that you could become sane again?"

Kyuubi cocked his head at Itachi. "Seeing how I'm sane right now, and how I got out of it the last time, I would have to see Madara's sharingan in here, which would make me sane again and then get break out of Tsukuyomi the way I broke out of it the first time in order to keep my sanity. "

"Okay, what are Madara's weaknesses now that he no longer has the Sakashima Mangekyou Sharingan?"

Kyuubi grinned. "Now that I can answer. He's just like he was when he had the Eien no Mangekyou Sharingan, only it's worse this time because he has only one eye; he has a blind spot. And if you were able to predict where he would appear and knock him out just as he arrived there, you would stop his Susano'o effects from working. You would still need an Eien no Mangekyou Sharingan to kill him though. Oh, Tsukuyomi would also work on him if you were able to catch his eye for it."

"I have one more big question for you. How do you think your insane side will affect my brother?" Itachi had genuine concern in his voice.

"It depends... If my insane side thinks he's in Tsukuyomi, he probably won't do anything. If he finds out he's in a jinchuuriki, he'll try to keep Sasuke alive at all costs, because when Sasuke dies, he dies. If Sasuke is emotionally unstable, he'll probably try to take control over his body by overwhelming Sasuke's chakra network with his own chakra. And if there is ever a time when he thinks he can convince Sasuke that his only option is to turn to him for help, he will tell Sasuke that the only way he can help him is for Sasuke to take this seal off." Kyuubi knocked on a bar.

"Huh?"

"There's a seal here that only Sasuke can see. It's what keeps me locked in here. If Sasuke were to take it off, it would release me out of his body. He would be killed in the process. That is what the insane Kyuubi wants the most and he will keep Sasuke alive until he gets it. Other than that, he'll ignore him. Got it memorized?"

"Yeah." Itachi looked thoughtful for a moment. "What would you, the sane Kyuubi do in here?"

"Oh, if it was me? If it was me in here, I would keep him alive, tell him stuff he fails to notice, watch his back in fights, and if he really was in trouble, let him take me out of here to fight for him. Kinda like Hachibi, only a lot more powerful."

"Who's Hachibi?"

"The eight-tailed ox-squid that's sealed up inside Kirabi, the Raikage's brother. Probably my most favorite bijuu to talk to. Is that all your questions?"

"Yeah. You've given me a lot to think about."

"Okay, good." Kyuubi stood up and stretched. "Just one more thing I need to tell you and then I think you should go back to you're own body. Let me see you're right arm." He held out his hand through the bars.

Itachi held out his arm and Kyuubi took it and pulled it through the bars. Kyuubi rolled up his sleeve and turned the arm until the shiny burn was glinting in the red light. "I see. Itachi, tell me when and where it hurts," said Kyuubi and Itachi felt something flowing through his arm. It wasn't painful until it went through his shoulder.

"Ow!" Itachi jerked his arm back through the bars. He rubbed his shoulder. "What did you do?"

Kyuubi looked up and laughed at him. "When you first stepped in the stream of my chakra, I felt someone that had mostly all human chakra, but also had vestiges of demon chakra mixed in with it. Most interestingly, it was my demon chakra. So, sorry if I kind of wanted to know how it's affected you."

"It's affected me?!"

"Of course! You think that having some of my chakra in you isn't going to affect you in some way?"

"Well, all it did was increase my reserves."

"Oh, it did something more than that, but I'm not going to tell you. Humans like discovering things for themselves and you'd learn it better on your own anyway."

"Are you covering up the fact that I'm a jinchuuriki?"

Kyuubi chuckled. "No, in order to be a jinchuuriki, you have to have a bijuu sealed in you. You definitely aren't that. In fact, my chakra stopped affecting you by the time Fugaku hacked your brother's eyes out."

"Oh, that's good."

"Yeah, well seeing as you don't have any more questions for me and I think I've given you enough to think about for a couple of years, I guess I'll send you back."

"You'll send me back? I thought I was the one who needed to end the jutsu.?"

"You did. It ended as soon as you stopped seeing Sasuke's memories. You didn't leave because you were looking for the exit right?" Itachi nodded. "Well, you missed it back there. Fortunately, I can send you out of my jinchuuriki's mind. Are you ready? This won't hurt a bit. Oh, one last thing. When they're figuring out what type of elemental chakra you have, make sure that you channel chakra through both hands at the same time as well as each hand separately. Got it memorized? Now close your eyes."

Itachi did so and a hand was placed across his forehead. Chakra rushed through him and the hand was removed. He opened his eyes and saw the pale face of his younger brother with his bloody hand over Sasuke's forehead. Itachi held Sasuke close to him and cried.

* * *

As soon as he had sent Itachi out of his jinchuuriki's mind, Kyuubi felt the insanity coming back. "No!" he cried as he lost his human form and went into his nine-tails form.

The Kyuubi's tails swirled in anger. Somehow the cursed Uchiha had gotten out of Tsukuyomi. He would remember him, him with his red eyes and black hair and white skin... _Wait, if he were an Uchiha inside Tsukuyomi, he would have white hair and black skin... This cannot be Tsukuyomi!_ The beast looked outside the bars. The world was the color it would be if it was lit by a red sky. _That confirms it._ Now that he'd thought about it, Tsukuyomi did not have those lakes that showed what was happening in the outside world. The Kyuubi padded back to look at the lakes again. If he was not it Tsukuyomi, where was he?

* * *

Sasuke woke up to find himself lying on someone's bed. He looked around the room and froze when he saw the Uchiha symbol on the wall. Footsteps were heard coming toward the room and he turned away from the door hoping that whoever it was wouldn't hear him and would walk by the room. His luck did not hold out.

The door opened and shut and Itachi's voice, emotionless as ever said, "Don't worry. Nobody besides me knows you're here."

Sasuke turned towards Itachi knowing that it was pointless to hide from him. "Where am I?"

Itachi sat on the foot of the bed. "You are in the room of Uchiha Itachi in the Uchiha Mansion." He didn't volunteer any more information.

"What are you going to do to me?" More than anything, Sasuke wanted to get back to his mother. He felt tears coming.

Instead of answering his question, Itachi asked, "Do you know anyone around here who wouldn't have a problem with you staying with them uninvited?"

"The Nara." It didn't take Sasuke any time to come up with an answer.

Itachi nodded and stood up. "Let's go." He gave Sasuke a hand. "In case you are wondering how we'll get out of here without anyone knowing, we are using shunshin."

Sasuke nodded, he'd seen his mother and aunt do it many times before. Itachi held him close and Sasuke felt a ripple of chakra go through him. He blinked and they were standing right outside the Nara's front door. Itachi knocked and the door was opened by Shikaku's wife, Yoshino.

She took a split second look at Itachi and Sasuke and pulled them in the door and closed it in less than a second. She shooed them into the living room. Once they were there, she sat Sasuke down on sofa while her shadow connected to Itachi's to prevent him from moving. Sasuke decided it was probably not a coincidence that the Nara had installed multiple overhead lights in the ceiling; Itachi was held in place by no less than five different shadows.

Yoshino went over to a shortwave radio set and started tuning it muttering the entire time that Shikaku had better have his on him and that he had better have not changed the frequency. She apparently got a hold of him because she said, "You can back home now, he's here... Uchiha Itachi of all people showed up on our door step with him... No, I made sure he wouldn't... Okay, good, see you soon." She walked over to Sasuke who hugged her tightly. "Is Kaa-san coming?"

She smiled at him. "Yes Sasuke, your mom, Kushina, and Shikaku are all coming back." She held him until voices could be heard in the kitchen.

"Kaa-san!" Sasuke ran into the kitchen and flung himself at his mother. "Kaa-san, Kaa-san."

"Sasuke!" She picked him up and held him close. "What happened?"

"There— There were," by now Sasuke was crying. "There were these three Uchi—"

"Perhaps I can explain?" Itachi asked from the living room.

Mikoto nodded at Shikaku and they all went into the living room.

"What happened, and how did you find out?" Mikoto was facing Itachi.

"An Uchiha bumped into Sasuke in the alley that goes around the Uchiha district and called in a few friends to kill him. They took him into the Uchiha district so that no one would know what they had done until afterwards. I saw them just as the leader was about to cut Sasuke's stomach open and reminded them that out clan would be dissolved if they killed them. They left and I caused Sasuke to go to sleep with my sharingan so that no one else would know he was there. I shunshined with him to my room where I left him while I went to find the men who tried to kill him. Once I found them, I asked them what they were doing and they quickly told me the truth. I also verified it with my sharingan to make sure that they didn't leave anything out. After that I told the Hokage and asked him that the incident would not be made public. He agreed and I went back to Sasuke. I asked him if there was anywhere near there where he could go. He told me to bring him here and I did. That is all." The entire time, he was talking in the same emotionless flat voice Sasuke had always heard him speak in.

"Thank you." There were tears in Mikoto's eyes. "Yoshino, let him go. It's obvious that he doesn't mean any harm." Yoshino nodded and the shadows retreated. Itachi nodded to Mikoto and shunshined away, leaving nothing more than a hand full of leaves in his wake.

Mikoto put Sasuke down on the sofa and wiped the tears from here eyes.

"Kaa-san, what's wrong?" Sasuke had never seen his mother cry.

"Nothing." she said and smiled. To Sasuke, it both sounded and looked forced. She put her arms around him."Well, I'm sure you want to go home."

"Yeah. I do."He paused. "Where's Naruto?"

"Naruto already went to bed; he's spending the night. Now hold onto me. We're going home." Sasuke did and Mikoto shunshined back their home, the Namikaze compound.

* * *

The purple-haired girl writhed on the floor in agony. _What's going on?_ She thought over and over again. _Why did he do this to me? Sensei's never hurt me before, not like this._

After a while the pain receded to a bearable level. She got up cracked all her joints to make sure they were fine. She hissed when cracking her neck caused the pain to flare up again. _What did he do to me? My body doesn't feel right. Maybe she would know; she does work with him in the lab after all._

She opened her door and walked through the maze-like passages to the lab and went inside. "Hey Karin," she called and a small girl with long, unnatural blood-red hair lowered the thick medical book she was reading.

"What is it Anko?" She sounded board.

Anko went up to her and pulled the collar of her shirt back to reveal a purplish-black bruise on the juncture of her neck and left shoulder. "You wouldn't happen to know what this is, would you?" she pointed at the bruise.

Karin squinted at the bruise and her eyes widened. She was definitely not board now. "Come here," she said, going towards the back of the lab. "He's got an entire file on it."

* * *

AN: The Sakashima Mangekyou Sharingan, the way it works (mostly) and its name are not mine. It is the brilliant creation of Nightblade888 from his story Naruto of the Mirage.

If you were really confused with this chapter, its okay writing it was hard. My advice to you is read it again and tell me what's confusing in a review and I'll straighten the confusion out in my next post. Thanks for reading!


	4. The Snake Mistress

AN: Sorry for getting this out later then I expected. In my defense, I started college and am still learning how to handle the workload of a chemical engineering major (think lots of math and chemistry). I won't stop writing as it is a nice break from all the technical work, but my updates might become erratic.

Reviews:  
A big thank you to all of you who corrected my errors. I found a couple of good Naruto info sites so hopefully there will be a lot less errors in the future. Thanks!

Nightrain and Brownstone:  
Kyuubi in not bipolar like Zetsu. Instead of having two separate personalities, he has one personality that went crazy when he fell into his worst nightmare, being trapped in Madara's Tsukuyomi. This spawned another personality that is linked to the sharingan. The second personality is always the dominant one unless someone with sharingan goes into Sasuke's mindscape and activates their sharingan. When that happens, Kyuubi's true personality comes out. The second personality will die if Kyuubi is trapped in Madara's Tsukuyomi again and breaks out of it under his own power instead of being let out of it by Madara. Hope that clears it up for you.

I know Karin is Sasuke's age. In the manga she doesn't have a background story so I am filling that blank slate and will do that for a lot of other people. I know she probably has one in the anime, but I've just started watching it and have just gotten to the Valley of the End, so she won't even be introduced for a while. That being said, I came up with the outline of this story before I started watching the anime by going off the information given in the manga and inspiration from some of my favorite fanfics. I might add stuff in from the anime if it works with my plot though. Besides, this is fanfiction where we can mess around with cannon as much as we want. (You do a great job of that in A Fox Among The Hounds by the way.)

On a final note about reviews, I finally remembered to turn on Anonymous Reviews so now everyone can review! From now on, I'll respond to signed reviews through the PM system and anonymous reviews in my posts unless a question or clarification seems important or a lot of people ask about it. This has been my favorite chapter to write so far and I hope you guys like it.

* * *

Chapter 4**  
The Snake Mistress**

Three years later

Mitarashi Anko blinked as the remaining smoke from the summons cleared to reveal a sight she thought she would never see again. The view from the Sandaime's head of Konoha. _Home. I can't believe I'm actually here._ She brushed a tear out of the corner of her eye.

"Did I send you to the right place?" A thin purple snake with black stripes and bluish-green eyes slithered up from under her light purple tunic and arranged himself around Anko's neck and across her shoulders.

"Yep! Thanks Manda." Anko's face broke out in a crazy grin. "Can't believe an idea that simple would let us get away from him though. 'Specially when we got the idea from him too."

"Yes. He always did have a rather bad habit of underestimating people." Manda was on the verge of chuckling.

"Yeah, amazing what overestimating people does for your survival rate. I hope that Sarutobi's still the same as Sensei said he was. He better not mind people sneaking into his office unannounced."

"Wait, what are we doing?" Manda's forked tongue flicked Anko's earlobe.

"We are shunshining right under the window in the Hokage's office were we will stick to the wall with chakra and wait until a good opportunity presents itself where you can crawl onto Sarutobi's desk and tell him that I want to talk to him about rejoining Konoha in private. Once he says okay, I'll come up and we'll take it from there."

"That'll work unless he thinks that Orochimaru sent me to kill him."

"Well, you could just tell him you're there or you could go back to the swamp."

"Why can't you just shunshin in front of him and tell him you want to come back?" Manda visibly rolled his eyes.

"Because if we did that and Sarutobi wasn't there, I'd be jumped by five ANBU and I don't think showing up with five ANBU who are nearly dead from various kinjutsu is a very good first impression to make on the Kage of the village you are asking to join."

"Good point. Never mind." Manda slid under her tunic again. Anko grinned and shunshined into a cloud of ash without making a sound.

* * *

Sarutobi was not having a good day. Yet another report had come in about what his son had last done and Sarutobi wondered again where he had gone wrong with him. During the council meeting the Uchihas had brought up the ownership of Kakashi's sharingan yet again. To top it off, he had just seen the large amount of paperwork Ibiki had given him. _How did Minato do this job?_ he wondered as he sat down at his desk only to quickly sit up again and stare at what he had sat on.

A purple snake he instantly recognized was irritably blinking his blueish-green eyes and looking at Sarotobi with annoyance. "And here I thought that the Hokage of all people would be smart enough to actually look before he sat down." The snake slithered onto the desk and nestled in among the stacks of paperwork. "I must be spending too much time with that underestimating fool of a summoner." The snake eyed Sarutobi and raised the ridge of scales above his eye. "Hey you! Aren't you going to say anything?"

"All right Manda, where is Orochimaru and why are you so small? You can only be summoned when you are near him and I thought he only summons you at your full size." Any shock Sarutobi had at first was gone.

"Where Orochimaru is, no clue. Probably in one of his many bases. Why I'm small instead of big, you'll need to find out how I got here first."

Sarutobi sighed and looked at Manda with narrowed eyes. "According to you, Orochimaru is not here and coming in quietly to my village is not his style. But the only way you could be here is if you had a summoner near." He paused. "Ah, I know. There is a summoner here, but it's not Orochimaru; you've made a contract with someone else." Sarutobi smiled at the snake in triumph.

The snake chuckled. "Yep. Sharp as ever. Yeah, I did make a contract with someone else and they would like a meeting in private with you."

Sarutobi looked thoughtful. "All right. I'll see them. But tell them that if they do anything I take as an attack on Konoha, I will take necessary action against them."

"Don't worry, that's the last thing I'd do," said a female voice from behind Sarutobi.

Sarutobi turned and looked at the girl in shock. If he didn't know Orochimaru wasn't the type of person who would have children, he would have thought the older preteen was his daughter. She had pale skin, waist-length purple hair, slanted pupilless purple-gray eyes, and the sadistic grin he knew so well across her face. What only reinforced the association was her clothing. Over her long-sleeved black shirt and black pants, she wore a light purple tunic and a purple rope that served as a belt.

_What is someone like her doing here? _"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Sarutobi asked.

* * *

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Sarutobi asked.

_Yep! Straight to the point as usual._ Anko laughed. "I'll answer those questions and any others you will have on one condition."

"You aren't in the position to bargain with me." Sarutobi reminded her.

_Does he honestly take me for a child?_ "I know, but here me out. You probably won't mind this condition if what I've heard about you is true."

Sarutobi raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

"Is the council, those who aren't shinobi anyway, and you're advisers small-minded, power hungry bastards that love kekkei genkai so much that they'd be willing to use illegal and immoral methods to insure there survival?" She arched an eyebrow and looked expectantly at the Hokage.

"Unfortunately, I would have to say yes." Sarutobi looked sadly up at her.

_Damn, I was hoping Sensei would be wrong about that. _"The condition I have is that I'll tell you anything you want to know as long you don't tell the council that I'm here in any size, shape or form until me and you come to some sort of agreement."

The Hokage looked shrewdly at her. "What sort of agreement?"

Anko bit her lip. "That'll become apparent when I tell you what you want to know."

"Will you at least tell me your name before I agree?"

"Yeah. It'll probably explain a lot. Mitarashi Anko."

"No." Sarutobi looked dumbfounded. "Not the one he..."

"Yes." Anko looked both sad and angry at the same time. "I'm the only child he ever thought was worthy of his time, effort and maybe even love."

Sarutobi looked thoughtful. "In that case I'll agree to you're conditions with one change: I'll have an interrogator in here simply listening in on us so that I get a neutral party's opinion. I'll order him not to tell anyone anything."

_Nothing less than I expected._ "That sounds reasonable. As long as it is not a Yamanaka; if they do it, you might as well tell the council I'm here and let them have their way with me."

Sarutobi smiled. "Don't worry. Morino Ibiki never talks about the subject of his interrogations unless I tell him to."

"Good," Anko smiled for some reason. "I'm fine with him. You mind if I sit down; I really don't want to fall out the window."

"Go ahead." The Hokage left the office.

Anko sat down on the opposite side of the Hokage's desk and held out an arm for Manda to crawl up and wind around her neck and shoulders. "Well, that went well."

"He's taking a risk trusting you." Manda rested his head on top of Anko's head.

"Yeah, but it's not like neither of us could lose anything by not agreeing."

"True."

Sarutobi came back in followed by a man with several long scars on his face. "This is Morino Ibiki." Ibiki and Anko nodded to each other. "He'll sit in on our conversation and do nothing more that observe." He turned to Ibiki. "Got it?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama," said Ibiki in a gravelly voice. He and the Hokage sat down in their respective chairs and looked expectantly at Anko.

Anko sighed and began nervously running her fingers up and down Manda's tail. She closed her eyes and forced herself to go back and remember all those years of hell. _I don't want to remember this._ Anko looked up at Sarutobi and started talking in a slow halting voice. "It all began began back when my parents died in the Third Great Shinobi War..."

* * *

"... trained there for half a year to throw him off our trail. That ended today and we reversed summoned to the Hokage monument." Anko stopped talking and sat back in her chair. Her face was streaked with tears.

Sarutobi had tears in his eyes as he placed his hand on her arm and squeezed it. "Anko, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine what you went through. Are you going to be alright?"

Anko looked at the Hokage in shock. "Of course I'm alright. I only get like that when I have to force myself to remember all of that. Most of the time I'm a crazy, psychotic, slightly sadistic girl who enjoys assassinating, torturing, and interrogating people." Both Ibiki and Sarutobi sweat-dropped. "But only for good reasons, which Orochimaru's definitely were not." They both let out a silent sigh of relief.

"You said you enjoy torturing?" Ibiki interrupted.

"I thought I told you not to say anything." The Hokage lifted an eyebrow.

"If you let me talk I might be able to save you several feet of paperwork to go through," Ibiki countered.

"Never mind, go ahead." There was a slight grin on Sarutobi's face.

"We're in need of more people in the T&I department that are good at physical torture as apposed to psychological torture. All the paperwork I gave you is recommendations, Hokage-sama.

"Anko, seeing that you like torture and who trained you in it, I wouldn't have a problem with you joining the T&I department as long as you are at ANBU level. If that's alright with you Hokage-sama."

"It's fine with me." Sarutobi looked at Anko. "Would you like that?"

_Bingo. _Anko asked one question. "Are you still the only one who can give ANBU orders?"

"Yes, I'm the only person ANBU answers to. Why?"

_Perfect. _"Well, Orochimaru had a lot of information on how the council worked and what decisions it made. Let's just say I wouldn't want to have to accept any missions from them."

Sarutobi smiled at that. "I take it that you don't want to do a lot of suicide missions to prove that you're previous loyalties are dissolved."

"Yeah," Anko grimaced. "That would be like working for Orochimaru again." Sarutobi and Ibiki winced at that. "So, when do I get into ANBU?"

"As soon as you sign these contracts and have your skills evaluated with the rest of the ANBU hopefuls, which is happening this weekend." Sarutobi pulled several pieces of paper out of his desk. He gave the first one to her. "This is for becoming a Konoha ninja and citizen, and this one," he placed another paper in front of her, "is for entering into ANBU."

Anko read through the first one, signed it and gave it to the Hokage for him to sign. She started reading through the second one and frowned part way through it. "This asks for my rank and a record of the missions I've done and I obviously don't have those."

"Oh, just put down pending for both of them and it'll go right through the process."

Anko turned in surprise to Ibiki. "How do you know?"

He turned to her. "I'm the head of the Torture and Interrogation department and would be the person evaluating your application. By the way, let me see your application; I need to check off that I've done your psych evaluation." She gave it to him. "There we go. Now all you have to do is prove us and the rest of ANBU that you are really at our level."

"How will I do that?" For the first time Anko looked worried.

"You have to fight one of the current ANBU and show us that you're at their level." Ibiki passed the ANBU form to the Hokage.

"That doesn't sound too hard."

"For you it probably won't be. Regardless of what the result of that is, you'll be put in ANBU," said Sarutobi as he signed the form. "I won't let the council punish you for something that wasn't you're fault."

Anko gave the Hokage a rare genuine smile. "Thank you." There was a satisfied pause. "Now that that's taken care of, where am I going to stay?"

"Oh, until your acceptance into ANBU is official, I was thinking that you could stay in the rooms behind my office."

"Why?" _I wasn't expecting that._ Anko frowned.

"The only people who go past my office door are myself and people I have told my ANBU to let in. The council won't know you're here until I let them know. After you're officially in ANBU we'll deal with that."

Anko nodded. "Sounds good."

The Hokage turned to her. "Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

"Uh, yeah." Anko looked down at herself. "If I'm going to be a Konoha-nin, um, I kinda think I need a new wardrobe. Oh, and access to a quiet quality weapons supplier would be good."

Sarutobi handed her a thick stack of ryo. "I think I can help you with that." They both laughed. "As for weapons, look for Shin's place. A lot of people don't go to him because he was originally from Kiri, but the few people who get past his temper don't go anywhere else."

"Thanks. I guess I'll go now."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" For the first time, Sarutobi sounded as if he had a sense of humor.

Anko looked at him in puzzlement. "I am?"

"Yes, your Konoha hitai-ate." He pulled one out of a drawer and gave it to her. "Welcome back." He smiled.

Anko gave him a genuine smile as she accepted the hitai-ate. Before she tied it on her forehead, she unwound Manda from her head. She smiled at the snake. "I know you don't like going back to the swamp because Sensei can summon you, but I kinda need you to go back now. Thanks for the training by the way."

"No problem. Besides," Manda smiled a very creepy smile, "he didn't give me any sacrifices last time he summoned me. So he still can't summon me for two more months."

"Nice. See you round." Manda disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"I never thought I'd see the day that Manda would favor someone besides Orochimaru," Sarutobi remarked.

"Yeah," Anko snorted, "but I never thought I would hate him either. Can I barrow a kunai?"

"What for?" Ibiki raised an eyebrow.

"I need to cut my hair. The only reason it's this long is because Orochimaru forbade me to cut it. He didn't want to waste time growing it out after he took over my body." Anko shuddered. The Hokage nodded and Ibiki threw one at Anko. She caught it and cut off a foot and a half of her waist-length hair so that it was at her shoulders. A few more cuts later and Anko had bangs. "Much better." She threw the kunai back to Ibiki and tied the hitai-ate around her head.

"Hokage-sama." She turned to Sarutobi, suddenly serious. "Thank you for trusting me enough to hear me out. I won't fail your expectations of me."

The Hokage nodded. "I'm glad to give you another chance to start over." Anko smiled at him and walked towards the door. "Don't you need a change of clothes before you leave?"

_Me, not being able to henge? _The purple-haired girl turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. "With all the things Sensei taught me, you think he forgot to teach me an ANBU-grade henge?" Ibiki and Sarutobi both face-palmed and Anko left laughing, something she hadn't done in years.

* * *

After Anko left, Sarutobi turned to Ibiki. "You think she's lying?"

"No," the interrogation expert said. "There's no way she could imagine that type of stuff without seeing it for real."

"I agree. Do you think she's sane?"

"Not completely. The fact that she is even alive means that she thoroughly learned what Orochimaru taught her and even enjoyed it, but the fact that she views what his goals are as evil and that she went into all the trouble to leave him and come back here means that she hasn't totally lost it. As long as she knows there are people here who won't judge her she'll be fine."

"So that's why you offered her a job." The Hokage smiled.

"Yes, and the fact that we really do need someone good at physical torture and nobody knows how to do it anywhere near as well as she does or would be as willing."

"Ibiki, do you have anything planned for the rest of the day?"

"No, Hokage-sama." Confusion was evident on Ibiki's face.

"Good. I have an idea of where she can stay after she makes ANBU this week. I want to have you here so they can have your opinion as well if they need it. You can come in now Gama."

A female ANBU walked in. "You called, Hokage-sama."

"I'm assuming you heard everything that went on in here with Anko."

"Hai."

"Good. Remove the mask; I need to talk to you outside of ANBU."

The ANBU removed both her mask and a henge. Long red hair dropped almost to her knees and a cheerful grin appeared. "Let me guess Sarutobi, you're going to ask if she can move into the Namikaze compound."

"Naturally." Sarutobi smiled at her guess. "I assume you heard the entire thing."

"Of course."

"So you're going to do it."

Kushina nodded. "Yeah, I'll have a talk with Mikoto and Yamato tonight to see who takes her in. I'll let you know ASAP."

"Sounds good. You may go." Kushina grinned and left the room.

"Do you need me anymore?" Ibiki asked. Sarutobi shook his head. "See you round then." Ibiki did a small katon jutsu on a large amount of paperwork on Sarutobi's desk and walked out of the office smiling.

* * *

"There is no way I'm living in the same house with that snake whore!" Yamato paced back and forth in front of Kushina and Mikoto. It was late night/early morning and they were meeting in Kushina's basement to discuss who Mitarashi Anko would be staying with if she stayed with the Namikaze at all. "As far as I'm concerned, the fact that she even survived being his apprentice this long means she's just as bad as he is."

"Now wait a minute Tenzo—"

"Don't call me that Kushina, especially around her!"

Mikoto looked shrewdly at Tenzo. "Yamato, you're jealous she won't have to prove what you had to, aren't you? You're also mad she's allowed to use all of the jutsus she learned from him as long as she doesn't abuse them. Am I right?"

Yamato clenched his jaw. "Yes."

Mikoto looked thoughtful. "I wouldn't be jealous of her; she'll have to prove something you never had to. As for the jutsus, she had to pay a worse price for them than you did."

"Like I could care," Yamato snorted.

Mikoto frowned. "Kushina, I'll take her in. I have more room than you do and Sasuke will like having a sister around. She'll probably prefer the company to living alone as well."

"She'll end up corrupting Sasuke, " Yamato scoffed.

"I'd prefer she corrupt him rather some other shinobi I could name." Mikoto had a certain bandaged 'adviser' of the Hokage in mind. "At least he'll remain loyal to Konoha."

"Well, if the two of you are done," Kushina intervened, "I'll inform the Hokage tomar... well today actually." They all laughed. "Let's go to sleep."

* * *

Sasuke waited until he couldn't hear his mother's footsteps anymore before he dared move. Tonight was going to be fun. It was the night before the ANBU recruiting trials were held and whenever those happened, the ANBU who came over to his mother's house would discus who the people trying to get in were and what their chances were of actually passing. It was very interesting and entertaining to listen to, especially when they were given information on who to place their bets on.

When Sasuke was sure that everyone was there, he sneaked down the stairs to the door of the living room. He had learned that for all shinobi were usually on guard at all times, they could get complacent if they thought they were in a place where they had habitual absolute safety. His mother's living room was one such place and he took advantage of it. He put his ear up to the crack between the door and the wall where the hinges were and listened to the ANBU talk.

"...actually passing this time around?" the voice Sasuke knew as both Kakashi and Ookami said.

"Two," said the gravely voice of the man Sasuke had come to recognize as Morino Ibiki, the head of the T&I department.

"Who are they?" This time it was Hayate, code named Kamereon.

"The first one is Umino Iruka and you'll be the one facing him, Hayate."

"Why is he passing?"

"We need an ANBU at the academy this year and he's perfect for the job. He has a excellent grip on the theory of jutsu in general and he's good with kids." _Interesting, _Sasuke thought, _they've never done this before. Does it have anything to do with Naruto starting at the academy this year?_

"Translation: you don't want me to go all out," said Hayate.

"Yes." Sasuke had the impression that Ibiki was smiling and heard laughter from everybody else.

"And the other person passing is?" asked Kakashi.

"Mitarashi Anko," Ibiki said slowly.

"Who is that?" Sasuke caught himself before he gasped at the emotionless voice. It was none other than Uchiha Itachi who had joined ANBU less than a year ago. _What is he doing here? He's never been here before._

"It's not my place to tell you who she is; you'll find out soon enough. I will warn you though. She'll be an extremely hard opponent for you to beat, not just because of who taught her, but because of her mindset."

"Are you implying she will be my opponent?"

"Yes."

"Why did you pick me to be her opponent?"

"Because you are the closest to her in both age and skill."

"How old is she?" asked Kakashi. Sasuke thought he could hear concern in his voice.

"A couple months older than you." Sasuke didn't know who he was referring to.

"She's twelve? Do you think she will be able to handle the stress?" Itachi asked the question much to Sasuke's surprise.

"Itachi," Ibiki now sounded serious, "if the council found out about her before I let her into ANBU, they'd try to make her life hell. For her, being in ANBU will be a welcome relief."

"From what?"

"I told you, that's not my place to say."

"I see." There was a pause. "If that is all, I should leave now..." At that Sasuke quietly edged down the hall and around the corner. He had been doing this for years and it would not do to be caught now. He shuddered at the thought of some of the interrogation methods he had heard about from Ibiki. The front door and the living room door both closed and Sasuke slowly counted to sixty. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he went back over to the door.

"...trustworthy?" Kakashi asked.

"Do you think I'd be letting her live in my house if she wasn't?" Sasuke's eyes widened at his mother's voice. _This girl's coming to stay at our house? When was this decided?_

"No, not really. Why is she staying here instead of with Kushina?"

"Because Tenzo hates her, not that I blame him, but he did say he would never live in the same house as her." That fact startled Sasuke; Tenzo got along with almost everybody.

"Why doesn't he like her?"

"You'll find out tomorrow, Kakashi. I promise."

"How do you think Sasuke will take having an older sister?" _Of course it's Ibiki. He's always concerned with my psych._ Sasuke almost laughed.

"He'll like it. He never says it, but I know he wants the relationship Tenzo and Naruto have." _How in the world did she find that out?_ Sasuke wondered and berated himself at the thought. _Duh, not only is she my Kaa-san, but she's also ANBU. She gets paid to notice stuff like that. _

"That'll probably be good for her as well. She'll have someone that won't care what other people think about her."

"All right. How do you know all this stuff about this Mitarashi woman and we don't?" Hayate sounded annoyed. _Seeing as he's the head of the Espionage department, that's understandable. _

"Simple. I was the one who did her psych test."

"She's going to join T&I?"

"Yes, we need more people and she wanted the job."

"What type of girl would want to work in T&I when they're only twelve?" Hayate wondered. Sasuke wanted to know the same thing, especially if she was going to be living in the same house as he was.

"As I said, you'll find out tomorrow."

"We aren't going to get anything out of you about this Mitarashi Anko are we, Ibiki?" Kakashi lazily asked.

"No, you're not."

Mikoto laughed. "Trying to get information out of the T&I head, Kakashi? Good luck! Ibiki, is anyone else trying to get in?"

"Yes, but they're not going to make it."

"So we have two out of ten this time around," Kakashi concluded. There was a pause. "So Hayate, how was your vacation." Sasuke smirked at the mention of a vacation, the ANBU jargon for an unofficial mission, and heard about yet another S-class mission that resulted in the theft of Kumo's shinobi rosters and bios.

* * *

Late at night when he was back in bed, Sasuke began going over what he'd heard. Apparently his mother had decided to let someone named Mitarashi Anko live in their house. The person was a girl and she was five years older than he was. That by itself wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that was the age of a genin fresh out of the academy and she was being recruited into ANBU. He had never heard of that happening to anyone, with the exception of Itachi, and even then he had gone up through the ranks like everyone else did. This girl had seemingly popped out of nowhere and was already assigned to a division.

What made it even more interesting was that Ibiki, of all people, had said that working in T&I would be a relief for her. _What type of past would you have to have to make working in T&I a relief? You would practically have to be raised by a sadist._

Then he considered the fact that Ibiki knew a lot more about her then he let on. Sasuke knew what the psych test was. It was used to determine how mentally fit a person was to join ANBU. From what Ibiki said, he knew a lot more about Anko then he would if he'd just done the psych test and it sounded like he might be covering for her. _Or protecting her. He said the council would make her life hell if she wasn't in ANBU. If the council would hate her that much, she can't be that bad._

One of ANBU's favorite things to do in Sasuke's house was complain about the council. While most of Konoha's shinobi population accepted missions from anyone who had the money to pay for it, ANBU did not. The only person they could accept missions from was the Hokage. If people wanted ANBU to do missions for them, they had to get the Hokage's approval before ANBU even saw the mission. Needless to say, the council wasn't as happy with the arrangement as the Hokage and ANBU were.

The bottom line, Sasuke decided, was that his mother was fine with this girl staying at their house. It sounded as if she knew a lot about Anko also. Trusting that his mother would never let someone who could hurt him willingly into the house, Sasuke went to sleep.

* * *

As Itachi ran home he thought about what Ibiki had said. Mitarashi Anko. That name did not sound familiar to him at all. That could be disturbing because the Konoha Military Police had a record of who all the ninja in the village were and who many of the civilians were. However, it sounded as if the KMP should not know who she was because the only people who knew she was in Konoha was the Hokage, the Namikazes and ANBU._ And Sasuke._ The thought jolted through him._ Why didn't I realize that three years ago?! He might have been a low B-rank security threat then, but he's been listening to ANBU secrets for years now; he's probably a mid A-rank security threat now, maybe even higher. More importantly, he knows the true horrors of the shinobi life. If he still wants to be a shinobi after all these years of hearing the worst they do, then he has my complete respect and support. At least he chose to find out about it and didn't have the knowledge forced on him like I did. I hope Kaa-san isn't mad at him when she finds out. She is in ANBU herself after all._

"Itachi-san, I wasn't expecting to see you this night." A low, cracked voice broke through Itachi's thoughts.

Itachi turned to the dark figure that emerged from the shadows. "Madara-sama..."

* * *

"Uh..." Anko groaned as woke up. "Damn nightmares. You'd think you'd be used to them after three months. At least that's gone..." She continued muttering to herself as she got dressed. Yesterday she had changed her look and now she was wearing a black sleeveless shirt, black shorts, and a tan miniskirt. A tan trench coat went over everything. Her short hair wasn't left down, instead she pulled it up in a spiky ponytail and tied her hitai-ate on her forehead.

Once she finished getting dressed, Anko went over her weapons for the ANBU evaluation that afternoon. She unsealed a scroll from the underside of her wrist and undid a seal on the scroll. A hundred kunai with seals marked in blood on them and an arm holster spilled out from the scroll. The girl made a hand seal which caused the kunai silently disappeared. _I am so paranoid. _Anko laughed to herself. _Although I probably wouldn't be alive if I wasn't._ After strapping the holster to her right forearm, she flexed her arm and a kunai fell out into her hand. She grinned and made the hand seal again. The kunai disappeared into the holster again. _All my normal weapons are on me, should I take... Yes, I'll take him. For all I know, I'll be facing an Uchiha._ Anko's face split into an evil grin as she bit her thumb to draw blood. The blood was smeared over a stylized snake tattoo that wound it's way around her left forearm before she snapped her bloody fingers and whispered, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu."

A jet black snake with glittering eyes slid out of the shadows. "You need me?" it said.

Anko chuckled. "Yep. We're going to have fun today, Kage."

Kage slithered over to her. "Good. It'll be nice to be actually used for something besides training for once, not that I mind that. You sure you don't want to swallow me this time?"

_Why did the one I like have to be the one that has a sense of humor?_ Anko wondered yet again. "We've had this discussion a million times before, Kage. The only reason why Sensei swallows Kusa is because he's a drama king. In fact, it's a good thing he swallows Kusa because if he didn't, it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy as it is to avoid the Kusanagi no Tsurugi and besides, having you in my throat clashes with my style."

"Man Anko, I was just kidding. You really need to loosen up."

Anko's eyes narrowed. "If I loosened up just a hair, I would be dead and something tells me you wouldn't enjoy that. Do you not want me to use you today?"

"Uh, never mind." The snake gave a nervous laugh. "I take it you want me to do the usual?"

"Yes please, any time now," Anko growled.

The snake nodded and stretched its two and a half foot long body straight out on the floor. Its mouth opened and the hilt of a katana came out of its throat until it was stopped by Kage's two inch long fangs. A shudder rippled through the snake's body, turning it into a sheath that perfectly resembled the snake.

Anko picked the weapon up and muttered a thank you to it before strapping it to her back._ Ah, It'll be fun going up against normal people again._ A sadistic grin made it's way across Anko's face as she went to meet up with the Hokage for the ANBU trials.

* * *

AN: I hope you guys like what I did with Anko. I know she's a lot different than she is in cannon and most fics, but I'd always wondered what she would be like if something different happened to her. Eventually, you'll learn what she told Sarutobi. (I'm not that mean.) The next chapter will have the Itachi vs. Anko fight and it will hopefully be out sooner than this one because I've been seeing that fight in my head for a long time. Thanks for reading.


	5. A Snake Is Revealed

AN: Yey! I got this out relatively on time!not two weeks late.

Stats as of 12/10/2009:

Words: 28,108

Chapters: 4

Reviews: 16

Hits: 1,561

C2s: 1

Favs: 13

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Draw whatever conclusions you want from the stats. I've seen some authors who do this and I liked it. I'll repost the stats every five chapters.

This chapter contains the first fight scene I've written. So, please tell me if I did a good job at it. (I hope I did.) There will be several technical notes at the end to explain various techniques used in the fight. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 5**  
A Snake Is Revealed  
**

From Anko's point of view, the expanse of forest beyond the fence in front of her really wasn't worth all the hype it got. Oh yes, she knew it had giant leaches, man-eating plants, and giant tigers in it, _but compared to giant snakes, people with the curse seal level two, and Sensei, it really isn't that bad._ Not to mention she knew about the network of tunnels beneath the forest floor that connected the village to the tower that just had to have many entrances scattered throughout the forest. _Of course, it kind of helps that Sensei's genuinely likes the Forrest of Death. This is going to be easy._

What was going to be easy was getting to the place where the trails were held. There was no way they could be held in the stadium that was used for the Chunin Exams; it was too public. Instead, the trials were held in the tower in the middle of Training Ground #44. It really was an ideal location. In order to get there, you needed to go through a little more than six miles of an oversized forest teaming with life that matched its scale, not the world outside. For anybody chunin level or below, they might be able to get to the tower in less then five hours, and that was with being let in a gate at the electrified fence that encircled the entire forest. If you were above chunin level, it was much easier, or at least it was supposed to be. As for the Anko, she, and the other ANBU hopefuls she assumed, were to somehow bypass the electric fence, travel through the forest (they were not allowed to shunshin to the tower), and get to the tower at 8am without anyone knowing they were there. For Anko, that wouldn't be hard at all.

Getting over, or rather under, the fence was easy. Because her ash shunshin could potentially set off the fence, Anko used an old trick of her sensei's. She melted into the earth on her side of the fence before shunshining beneath the ground and melting out of the earth on the forest side of fence. With a smirk, Anko went over to the too-normal-for-the-forest-of-death tree she had been looking for and channeled chakra directly into the trunk. A portion of the trunk slid upward to reveal a hole that went down through the trunk of the tree into the earth. Anko dropped down into the hole and the trunk slid down to cover it. Laughing, she ran down the tunnel towards the tower.

* * *

_Come on, come on, come on!_ Anko thought as she pushed up on the trap door that led into the tower._ It shouldn't be this difficult to open!_ She gave it one last push and the door popped open. One look at the floor told Anko exactly why the door had been so hard to open.

"Sorry, Hokage-sama," Anko nervously laughed. "But unless you're a Hyuuga, you really can't know when someone's on top of the door."

After making sure Sarutobi and his chair were upright and the ANBU in the room didn't try to kill her, Ibiki asked her, "How did you find out about those tunnels? I know you couldn't have found out about those in the three days you've been here."

Anko shrugged. "The Forest of Death was always Sensei's favorite training ground. It was one of the few places he said he actually missed when he left Konoha. So, he talked a lot about it, not that I minded, it was a nice break from the usual stuff, and told me exactly what to expect from it."

"Including secret ways to bypass the entire thing?" Ibiki raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah." Anko smiled her usual psychotic grin. "One of the better things I learned from him. Ja ne." She walked out of the surveillance room and ran to the arena on the bottom floor of the tower, completely ignoring the looks she got from ANBU stationed throughout the tower.

* * *

In the arena were the ANBU hopefuls. Not counting Anko, there were nine of them. Anko was the youngest person there and the only girl in the room. From the circles under their eyes and dirt on their gear, it was obvious they had all gone through the forest at night. Anko almost pitied them. The only person who stood out to her was a brown-haired man with a scar across the bridge of his nose. He was sitting in the most optimal place in the room to keep an eye on everything; the back corner directly opposite the entrance. He had either gotten there first or everybody else had been too stupid or tired to walk across the room to get to the corner; they were leaning inattentively against the walls. Anko cheekily laid up on the other best spot in the room for observation, the ceiling.

After ten minutes the Hokage and ANBU shunshined onto the observation decks. The Hokage looked at the people in the arena and a quick look of surprise was seen on his face. It was replaced with a look of understanding when he saw Anko on the ceiling. He frowned at her and she gave him her usual psychotic grin before dropping down to the floor.

The Hokage cleared his throat. "Seeing as we're all ANBU, I'm going to cut through all the formalities and get right to the point. You guys are going to fight a current ANBU member. Depending how well you do you'll be let in. Go up to the other deck and watch the fights until your name is called."

Anko and everybody else went up the the viewing decks and settled down to watch. The first eight matches were a joke. The hopefuls were beaten in less then a minute by the ANBU they were facing. They were so obviously bad, Anko didn't even bother memorizing their names. After each of them were beaten, they were escorted out of the arena.

The man with the scar across his nose was the ninth. His fight was different than the others. The techniques he used were were basic, but his understanding and execution of such techniques was flawless. His fight was much longer and far more interesting to watch. When he was finally overcome by his opponent, Hayate, it was obvious he was making ANBU. Anko was definitely remembering his name: Umino Iruka. Instead of being told to leave the arena, Iruka was told to stay and watch Anko's fight.

* * *

"Will Mitarashi Anko and Uchiha Itachi go to the floor of the arena?" the Hokage asked.

_I couldn't have planned any better!_ Anko was ecstatic. She loved a good fight and an Uchiha could probably provide the best fight out of everyone in the room. _Kage, Manda, I'll definitely let you guys out if he's as good as the Uchiha say they are._ She quickly scanned the room and found the person who was also moving toward the stairs. He was definitely an Uchiha. Long, smooth black hair was pulled back into a low ponytail and bangs fell over his black eyes and pale skin. Anko could see just by the way he carried himself that he was probably the most emotionless person in the room. It surprised her that he could be this good without having emotions; in her experience, the more emotions a person felt, the better they could fight and the less emotions they had, the worse they fought. _Or at least, they give up a lot quicker._ The biggest surprise she got was when she saw how old he was, he looked to be about her age. _He better put up a good fight..._

Itachi heard his name and watched carefully to see who would start moving. The person who did was a girl with short purple hair pulled up in a spiky ponytail. She wore khaki trench coat over a black shirt, black shorts and a tan mini-skirt. Strapped across her back was a personalized katana. One look at her face told Itachi she was probably never emotionless and wanted to fight. _That just might help me out. I hope..._

By now the two of them were facing each other in the arena. "Hajime!" the Hokage shouted.

Itachi immediately went into a stance from his family's taijutsu style. Anko didn't even move. She stayed where she was, her arms crossed, her weight shifted to the side. "We don't have all day, Uchiha. Don't even bother waiting for me to move," she told him, trying to goad him into attacking first._ It's a win-win situation for me, Uchiha. I know exactly what to expect from you if you attack, and you don't know what I will do if I attack you. Figure it out. I want a good fight. Why'd I have to pick up that love from Sensei?_

Itachi held his position. Whoever attacked first had the element of surprise, but if you expected an attack, you had the advantage. Right now though, Itachi didn't know what this girl was going to do or how she would react to his attack. It would be so much better if she was in a recognized taijutsu stance. _From what she said, she is willing to wait until I attack. Why did I have to get the one no one knows about?_ Another thought ran through his head. _Ibiki said she would be hard for me to beat because of who taught her and because of her mind set. I should have asked him what he meant by that._ He looked again at Anko and saw she had arched her eyebrow and was tapping her fingers, both in what was probably impatience. _Fine. You win this round._ Itachi moved across the arena to knock her out, he hoped, while she still wasn't prepared for his assault.

Anko saw him coming before he even moved just by the way his weight shifted and his eyes locked onto her. _When will they ever learn to stop telling me where they're going to go?_ she asked herself as quickly moved out of the range of his attack and snapped two kunai at him faster than the eye could see. They hit him in the thigh, drawing blood. For the first time, Anko saw an emotion on Itachi's face, amazement. She grinned. He had shown her that he actually had emotions even if they were heavily repressed. _Now to get him to lose that control._ "You're not the only one who can predict people's movements." She slowly walked in front of him as if he wasn't even there, casually flicking a kunai between her fingers. _Come on. Fall for the bait and try and track the kunai with you sharingan. I want to see it._

As he pulled the kunai out of his leg, Itachi was in shock. _She should not have know how to pull a move like that._ The Uchiha's taijutsu style was never taught to anyone outside the clan. The only way she could have known how to exploit the style would be if someone from his family had taught it to her. _The question is, who would betray our family to do that. _"Who taught you how to read our taijutsu?" he finally asked her. "Which Uchiha told you?"

Anko's crazy laughter rang out. "Don't worry, Uchiha. No Uchiha taught me how to read you or how to exploit you. My sensei taught me how to do that and he did a very good job it." _One of the few things I can actually thank him for._ Without warning she flicked the kunai at him. It scratched the side of his neck close to his jugular._ Hurry up and activate the sharingan. It'll make this easier for me. I don't like __to be sloppy._

_I couldn't even tell she was going to throw it, let alone where it was going to go. She's too fast, I think... _Itachi activated his sharingan. "If he taught you how to do that, who taught him that?" he returned.

_Finally you show your sharingan! _"Nobody." Anko smirked. "He got annoyed with both of Konoha's doujutsu so he developed a taijutsu style from scratch that made the sharingan and byakugan useless. Interesting enough, it works well against almost everything else as well."_ The Hebi style, not that I'll tell you that; it'll give too much away._

_You would have to be a genus to come up with a style like that. _Itachi dared one more question. "Who was he? Who was your sensei?"

"You'll find out by the time we're finished here. I promise you that." The level of the match shifted up a notch.

Itachi's eyes widened as a predatory gleam appeared in Anko's eyes and she hungrily licked her lips. It seemed to Itachi he was looking at a coiled snake, ready to strike without waring and he was its prey. Itachi tried to get the image out of his head, but it stayed with him until the fight was over. Fear made it's way into his mind; Itachi had not been in this position for a long time. He realized she had stopped playing around and was getting serious, maybe too serious.

* * *

Next to the Hokage, Ibiki spoke. "Brings back old memories, doesn't it?"

The Hokage nodded. "Yes, indeed it does." He recognized the look in Anko's eyes and thought back to a pale skinned, black haired boy. "Indeed it does." He knew then and there who would win the fight and it was not going to be Itachi.

* * *

Suddenly, Anko struck. One second she was causally standing in front of Itachi, the next she was driving two kunai towards the base of his skull from behind. Itachi never saw her. Panic flooded through his body. The sharingan did not lose people's positions._ How did she do that? She was not joking when she said her taijutsu style rendered the sharingan useless. But how does it do that?_

Anko grinned as she wove around Itachi. She could practically see what he was thinking. _Keep trying to figure out how Hebi style works. When you do, you'll switch to ninjutsu because my winning in a taijutsu fight ends with your death. Not that we'll use ninjutsu very long anyway._

After fighting Anko for at least five minutes, Itachi was beginning to see why he couldn't see her. It was not because of her speed, like he first thought, but because of her movement, or rather, because of her lack of movement. The sharingan predicted movement by taking in all the tiny changes people made when they were going to move, weight shifting, eyes flickering, hands twitching, and calculated what the person would do based off of those. Most of those movements couldn't be seen with a normal eye, hence why people didn't get rid of them, but with the sharingan, those movements were huge.

The reason, Itachi realized, he couldn't tell what Anko was going to do or where she was going to go was because she made none of those changes. Instead, she spontaneously moved from a neutral position. That took out the change of the shifting weight. She also never looked at what she was aiming at, thus getting rid of the flickering eyes. The twitching hands were taken care of by a forearm holder for her kunai which she used with deadly accuracy... _That's it!_ Itachi realized with horror._ Anko's style is not designed to maim, but to kill... _"Why are you trying to kill me?!" he shouted at her, losing his emotional control momentarily.

"I'm not trying to kill you; that's just the way my style works." _Yes! Finally you figured it out. _Anko was ecstatic as she made another attempt for one of Itachi's kidneys which he ducked. "In fact, I don't think I've ever been this sloppy before on purpose. Besides, the Hokage told me not to, so I won't."

"I don't believe you." _Your style is reminiscent of a snake's movement; quick and fatal. Nobody trusts a snake._ Itachi moved his hands through seals at lightning speed and let forth a fireball from his mouth.

When she saw the fireball coming for her, Anko went through her own handseals. _Let's see how you like this._ A wall of what seemed to be purple glass rose up in front of her. The fire hit it and both the wall and the fire disintegrated into nothingness.

Itachi's momentary shock at his blocked technique cost him. Four snakes shot out of the dissipating fireball and rapped themselves around him, pinning one of his arms to his side. He looked to see the source of them and his eyes widened when he saw they came out of Anko's sleeve._ The only person who used snakes like that was Orochimaru. If she has a connection to the snake, why would the Hokage let her in the village?_ From there he turned to the more pressing matter at hand. As it was, his trapped arm ruled out making any jutsu _...except that one... _and he had a feeling that if he tried to escape Anko wouldn't have a hard time recapturing him. _I guess I'll just have to use that jutsu, even though I was saving it for an ace._

Anko saw a subtle change in Itachi's face before he started making unfamiliar one handed seals. _What on earth is he doing?_

"This ends here, snake. Kasuiton: Hoekidame no Jutsu!" Itachi took a deep breath and breathed out what looked like fire towards Anko. She retracted the snakes and jumped onto the ceiling. The fire sloshed onto the floor and spread until it was several inches thick. Itachi calmly landed on the still burning fire and looked at Anko, pleased that he succeeded in surprising her for once. _Kyuubi, thanks for the kekkei genkai and thanks for making me immune to it._

On the ceiling, Anko was thinking fast. _I can't stand on that and he's already guessing who my sensei was. Plus he's a good opponent to have lasted this long. _She bit her thumb to draw blood and swiped the blood across her summoning tattoo. "Uchiha," she called. "If you're bringing out your ace, I might as well bring out mine." She flipped off the ceiling as she snapped her bloody fingers.

Itachi gaped as smoke filled the room and something heaved under him. He looked up and gasped at what he saw. Anko was standing on the head of a gigantic purple snake with black stripes and four backwards facing spikes on the back of its head. The head itself was up near the ceiling while the rest of its body sprawled across the entire arena floor, effectively creating another floor over his jutsu. He himself was now standing on one of its coils. Itachi knew who the snake was. It was Manda, Orochimaru's favorite summon. _So, I was right, she does know the snake sennin. _It was a known fact that when Orochimaru left, he took the snake summoning contract with him. The only way anyone could summon snakes was if they knew him and not just anyone wanted to know the snake sennin that well. "Orochimaru was your sensei," Itachi stated. "That explains everything."

"I haven't heard that tone in a while." Manda rumbled. "Uchiha. I must say, Anko, I know I trained you better then for you to have trouble with one of them."

"Not Uchiha with extra kekkei genkai." Anko replied.

"What? Extra kekkei genkai. Why can't Orochimaru ever summon me for opponents like this?" For some reason, Manda sounded annoyed. "So, what's his kekkei genkai aside from the sharingan?"

"He called it Kasuiton, fire-water release. It has the heat and flames of fire and is expelled like a katon, but it behaves like a liquid and hasn't disappeared like a suiton. Seeing as the Uchiha's walking on it, he's probably immune to it... and that's it."

_I hoped she wouldn't figure it out that fast,_ Itachi thought.

Manda laughed. "Sounds like fun. I'll be your floor. Have as much fun at it as I will."

"Sure thing." Anko finally turned to Itachi. "Let's go. I hate to be kept waiting." She placed her hand on the hilt her katana and silently disappeared in a cloud of ash.

Itachi began looking around trying to find Anko before she found him. He had thought she was dangerous before, but now he knew he had underestimated her. What troubled him the most was when Manda said he had trained her. Someone trained by Orochimaru was bad enough, but to be trained by a boss summon was even worse, especially since they appeared to be on good terms with each other.

Out of nowhere, something struck his side. When he looked down all he saw was empty air and the side of his torso bleeding. Anko was behind him and was holding the hilt of her katana directly behind the cut in his side. There was no blade. "What is that?" He asked Anko. He could feel a blade in his side.

"It's something you can only get by having a contract with Manda." Anko psychotically smiled at him. _It's called the Kagenagi no Tsurugi: Kuragari no Tachi and you won't like it. _"Get out your ninjato, you'll need it."

Itachi unsheathed it even though he thought he wouldn't need it. _Kasuiton should be enough. She said Manda was her ace so she should be low on chakra from summoning him. _It turned out he did need it because the fight turned into a kenjutsu match. Whatever weapon Anko had was definitely a katana and she was good with it. It didn't help that its blade was invisible or that it seemed to be to long to fit in its sheath at times.

The worst of it was not the sword, but the environment. The floor was covered with Manda's tail with kasuiton seeping up between the cracks. As they fought, Manda kept moving around, never keeping the ground stable. From the way she fought, it became apparent Anko was used to fighting on top of the moving snake. Fortunately, Itachi was able to do his one handed Kasuiton jutsu and kept doing them even as he kept fighting Anko. It evened the fight.

* * *

"Hokage-sama," a black-haired woman asked the Hokage. "Are you sure Anko's not going overboard?"

"Yes, Mikoto," the Hokage answered. "I have no idea what her actual skills are like, so I essentially asked her to show off. Although, knowing her she probably won't give everything away."

"Ah," Mikoto nodded.

"Why?" The Hokage looked at her. "Are you concerned about Itachi?"

Mikoto shook her head. "No, he's good enough to come out of this alive. I need a new sparing partner." She and the Hokage smiled.

* * *

After several minutes of fighting, Anko was getting board. Itachi's kasuiton jutsu had brought the fight to a near even match and it would not be ending anytime soon _...if nothing changes that is._ She inwardly smirked and let Itachi get inside her guard.

Itachi allowed himself a small smile as he finally managed to get inside Anko's guard and knock the katana hilt away from her before he pinned her against one of Manda's coils with his ninjato. "I win," he said as he let his emotionless mask fall into place. He let out a mental sigh of relief just as a katana stabbed through his torso from behind him. Fortunately, it narrowly missed his heart and lungs and only went through skin and muscle. Looking down, he saw nothing. Looking behind him, he did not see a clone like he expected. Instead he only saw the hilt of Anko's katana floating in the air. "What is this?" he asked Anko. To Itachi's alarm, the black blade of a katana appeared from the wound in his torso and extended through a gap in Manda's coils until it hit the floor. It was well over the two and a half foot length of the sheath on Anko's back.

Anko laughed as she removed the ninjato from her neck and got up from underneath Itachi. She placed a kunai at Itachi's neck. "I win and do you really think I'd be so stupid as to tell you what my katana can do?."

Itachi shook his head and released the kasuiton that covered the floor. With a psychotic smile Anko removed the kunai and pulled Kagenagi out of Itachi. She playfully flipped the katana up in the air. It shrunk and tumbled into its sheath. A handseal was made and all of Anko's kunai disappeared into her holster. Manda disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

The girl turned back to see the medics healing Itachi's wounds. "It was a good fight and I wouldn't mind having another one with you without any restrictions, Uchiha," she told him. "Ja ne." Ash swirled around her and she reappeared on the observation deck.

_I would mind that either,_ Itachi thought as he climbed the steps to the other observation deck. _Now why did I lose against her?_ Throughout the Hokage's short speech he thought through the fight in his mind.

* * *

"According to what you said you could do, you decided not to show him everything. Why?" Sarutobi peered at Anko through the smoke from his pipe. The two of them were lazing in his office after the ANBU trials with several plates of dango.

"Hokage-sama, what type of shinobi would I be if I didn't have some secrets." Anko gave him a satisfied grin as she finished of a dango stick. "Besides, I let him see the Hebi style, my summons, and told him who my sensei was and what my sword's abilities are."

"You decided he didn't need to know what you're ninjutsu's like?" Sarutobi had an uncharacteristic sly smile.

"No," Anko laughed. "If he want's to know the type of ninjutsu Orochimaru developed he can look it up, not that it'll help much seeing as most of the jutsu I know were developed after he left Konoha."

"And you're other ace?" Sarutobi prompted.

The snake mistress' face darkened. "That will only be used around people I can trust or when I'm completely out of options. The only reason why is because a lot of people would take it the wrong way, not because I don't like using it. In fact, it's my most favorite thing to use." She threw the dango stick at the wall to start making the spiral leaf symbol of Konoha.

"A wise decision." Sarutobi looked thoughtful.

"So," Anko's attitude made a complete one-eighty. "Have you figured out where I'm staying yet?"

"Oh, yes," Sarutobi answered. "Namikaze Mikoto has agreed to take you in."

"Namikaze, eh. Sensei's least favorite clan is still around then. He'll be so disappointed to hear that." Anko's crazy grin returned.

Sarutobi laughed. "He still holds a grudge against Namikaze Minato for taking the role of Yondaime Hokage from him?"

"Most definitely. So, when do I move in?"

"As soon as possible. Mikoto wants to have a talk with you first."

"When will that be?" There was a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" Sarutobi asked.

"Itachi," a female voice answered.

"A codename," Sarutobi told Anko when he saw the shocked expression on her face. She nodded in understanding. "Come in," he said to the door.

The door opened to let a black-haired female ANBU in. As her codename suggested, a weasel mask covered her face. She pulled it off to reveal a pale face and black eyes that strangely reminded Anko of Uchiha Itachi. Instead of the Uchiha's emotionless mask, she had an easygoing smile on her face.

"Ah, Mikoto, we were just talking about you." Sarutobi smiled at her.

"I know. That's why I decided to drop in." Mikoto sat down next to Anko and looked seriously at Sarutobi. "I believe you know what I want to talk about, Sarutobi."

"Yes," he nodded. "Go ahead."

"Well," Mikoto looked at Anko. "I'll guess I'll start by asking you if you remember the Kyuubi attack."

Anko nodded. "Yeah, I remember it. Me and Sensei left after it was sealed."

Mikoto was surprised. "You knew it was sealed?"

Anko rolled her eyes. "When your sensei's on an insane quest to learn every jutsu in existence, demon containing seals are bound to come up sometime. That's all I know about it though; Sensei abandoned Konoha so he doesn't know who it was sealed into, although he guessed the Yondaime sealed it because no one else was skilled enough to do it." She continued wolfing down dango.

"Well, that makes my explanation a lot easier. Minato wanted to seal the Kyuubi into his son because he didn't want to force the burden of a jinchuuriki on to anyone other than his own family." Mikoto took a deep breath before she continued. "Unfortunately for him, the Kyuubi attacked when his wife was only five months pregnant with his son. His wife, Kushina, was on my genin team and knew I was ready to have my second child so she convinced Minato to ask me if I would let him seal the Kyuubi in to my unborn son. After learning the Kyuubi wouldn't be able to influence the way my son, Sasuke, thought, I agreed to it. Unfortunately, my husband, Uchiha Fugaku didn't agree with my decision and disowned Sasuke, cut out his sharingan eyes, and divorced me. I think he thought having a jinchuuriki in the clan was a dishonor so he got rid of it. Afterwords, Kushina let me and Sasuke into the Namikaze family. That was almost seven years ago." Mikoto looked pointedly at Anko. "You won't have a problem with my son being a jinchuuriki, will you?"

Anko shook her head and flicked the dango stick at the wall. She was now on the point of the spiral. "No, as long as he doesn't experiment on people or anything like that, I won't have a problem with it. People probably hate him as much as they'll hate me when they find out who my sensei was." She looked at Mikoto with a questioning glance. "You said Uchiha Fugaku was your husband, and yet you don't act like an Uchiha. Why?"

"What type of shinobi would I be if I didn't have some secrets?" The black haired woman laughed and turned Anko's own words back at her. "Although, I must say, it was very... satisfying to see you defeat my oldest son so spectacularly. That hasn't happened to him in a awhile and it'll be a good reminder to him that he is not the most powerful shinobi out there."

"Itachi's your son?!" Anko's jaw dropped. "But he seems the complete opposite of you."

Mikoto's face fell. "That would be Fugaku's doing. He's the head of the Uchiha clan and the only thing he wanted Itachi to be was the perfect shinobi; you know, emotionless, never questions orders, all that junk." A thoughtful look dispelled the sad one. "I don't think Fugaku quite succeeded, though because Itachi joined ANBU and not KMP like Fugaku wanted him to." No one noticed Sarutobi's knowing smile.

"So is that all I should be aware of?" Anko downed another piece of dango.

"No." This time it was Sarutobi who answered. "Everything Mikoto talked about, Sasuke being a jinchuuriki and Mikoto being an Uchiha specificly, is a S-rank secret. Unfortunately, the Uchiha leaked everything to the public. The only people who don't know about it are the kids born around and after the Kyuubi attack. Because of that, people aren't allowed to talk about it in public and around those who don't know." Here, Sarutobi's eyes hardened. "I'd prefer it nobody knew about it or talked about it, but I'm not that stupid." He looked at Anko. "Do you understand?"

"Yeah," Anko grimaced as flicked a stick at the wall. "Don't talk about it, but don't get startled if anyone else starts talking about it." She gave Mikoto a meaningful glance. "Is the kid going to find out someday?"

"Yeah," Mikoto sighed. "I'm planing on telling him when makes genin. Anko," Mikoto looked directly at the girl.

"Yes," Mikoto's tone was more serious then she'd ever heard it.

"There's something else you should know and it's not about Sasuke this time." Mikoto was agitated for some reason. "What I'm going to tell you right now, I shouldn't be telling you. But you need to hear it. Just don't repeat it and when you do hear it officially, act as if you've never heard it."

"Okay." Anko put down the half-eaten dango stick and looked seriously at Mikoto.

"Living in Kushina's house with Naruto, the Yondaime's son, is an ANBU who goes by the name of Yamato. His real name is Tenzo, but he doesn't want you to know that." Mikoto sighed and looked out the window. "Seeing who you were with for the past seven years, I'll just be blunt and say he was a survivor of one of Orochimaru's experiments."

Anko's eyes widened and she looked up at Sarutobi. "What?! You let a survivor of Orochimaru's experiments be a shinobi?! Depending on the experiment, that was either really smart or really stupid of you."

Sarutobi smiled faintly. "Don't worry, he's as sane as any other ANBU is, if not more. Because of the experiment, he now has the Shodai's cells in him and is able to use mokuton."

"So that experiment actually worked." Anko thought for a moment. "Does Orochimaru know about this?"

Sarutobi shook his head. "No, he doesn't, but the reason why he doesn't is because Tenzo wasn't an idiot and didn't publicly use mokuton until we confirmed Orochimaru wasn't coming back. When we found him, he had escaped from Orochimaru's labs somehow and was wondering around Konoha. The Namikaze and I believed him when he told me what Orochimaru had done to him and the Namikaze took him in so Orochimaru couldn't get to him. Nearly everyone else thought he was lying about Orochimaru's research labs under the city though, and he was only believed when they were found after the Kyuubi attack." Sarutobi nodded to Mikoto who finished up for him.

"When Kushina told Yamato you were coming to stay with the Namikaze, he said there was no way he was staying in the same house as you were. He's jealous you won't have to prove your connection to Orochimaru. At the same time, he's mad you can use Orochimaru's jutsu. He actually went so far to say you're as bad as Orochimaru is because you survived for this long." Mikoto sighed again and looked at Anko. A single tear trickled down the girl's face. "I'm just telling you this so when he reacts badly to you, you'll know why."

Anko nodded in thanks and wiped the tear away from her eye. She looked out over Konoha before she said quietly, "He's got every right to think that about me." There was a sad smile on her face. "I don't think it would help matters if I told him I was just as jealous of him." Anko looked down again. When she turned her attention back to Mikoto she was back to her usual psychotic self. "Is that everything I need to know before I move in?"

Mikoto nodded, "Just about. I need to key you into the seals at the compound, but we have to do that there. Shall we go?" Anko nodded and flung the last dango stick at the wall to finish the perfect Konoha symbol she had been making. Mikoto and Sarutobi laughed at her antics and the two women left the room.

Not ten minutes after they had left, the door was angrily opened and Uchiha Fugaku walked in. "What is the meaning of this, Sarutobi?!" He strode across the floor, planted his hands on the Hokage's desk and angrily glared down at the man seated behind the desk. "My son comes back from the ANBU trials and tells me he was beaten by a girl who was trained by the Hebi sennin! Why would you let someone trained by him into the village, let alone ANBU? She'll kill us all in our sleep! What is the meaning of this?!"

The Hokage inwardly sighed. He had hopped news of Itachi's defeat would not spread so quickly. On the other hand, messing with the council was one of his guilty pleasures and it was almost always more profitable for the village then what they were planning. "Fugaku-san, Mitarashi Anko is in ANBU and as such is it of my concern, not yours, as to what security risks she poses. I have talked with her and I have found she will not be a security threat. If you still think she is that big of a security risk, I suggest you talk with her department head."

"I will certainly do that." The tension drained out of Fugaku's face. "Who would that be?"

The Hokage could barely keep a straight face as he deadpanned, "Morino Ibiki."

All the color drained out of Fugaku's face as he mouthed, "Torture and Interrogation."

The Hokage pretend not to notice as he said, "Now that we've cleared that up, Fugaku-san, why don't you get out of my office. I have paperwork to get to and I'm sure you do to." Fugaku weakly nodded and almost ran out of the office.

When he was sure Fugaku was out of hearing range, Sarutobi finally allowed himself to laugh. He wasn't the only one.

"Nice one, Hokage-sama," said a lazy voice that reviled itself to be a male ANBU with gravity-defying silver hair and a wolf mask over his face. He was standing in the corner by the door.

"Yeah, he totally walked right into that one!" exclaimed another. This one appeared over the windows and had shoulder-length brown hair. An jackal mask covered his face.

"I'm so telling Mikoto about this. She'll get a kick out of it." A female ANBU with long purple hair and a cat mask had collapsed in a fit of giggles on the ceiling.

Sarutobi leaned back in his chair and laughed along with with his "emotionless" bodyguards.

* * *

AN: As you can tell from the last couple of chapters, Sarutobi is not a weak old man who blindly lets the council order him around. In fact, he has a lot of fun messing their plans up and the ANBU have a lot of fun helping him with it, often for personal reasons. I've never quite gotten it when authors make Itachi's codename Weasel. It makes sense in English, because Itachi is different Weasel, but it when all the codenames are in Japanese it doesn't make sense at all. Who in their right mind would have their code name be the same as their real name? On another topic, sorry Sasuke wasn't in this chapter. We're getting to the end of the "laying the foundation of the story" chapters and then they'll be a lot more of him (and Naruto). He'll be in the next chapter a lot.

Here's the technique list I promised you all. I hope it explains things.

**Hebi Style:** This is mostly based of the Hebi style Geor-sama made up for his story Naruto: Altered History and it's squeal Naruto: Shinobi Wars. (Which are both excellent stories by the way. Read them.) It undermines the sharingan by not giving it the movements the sharingan needs to calculate where the person is going to go. Speed is needed to make it work, but that is not what confuses the sharingan. (For those of you who say the sharingan can only track chakra, what about Sasuke tracking Lee. Lee doesn't use chakra in his moves, but Sasuke still sees, predicts and copies them.) The biggest advantage of the style is that it's goal is assassination. By the time a person has figured it out, they're dead. In order to keep Itachi alive, Anko simply misses his vital points. She has to concentrate more then usual to do that which is why she complains about being sloppy. One of the weakness of the style is the kunai. Anko can't kill people without them, so if she runs out, she's dead. There is another strategy for the byakugan which will be introduced later.

**Kasuiton (Fire-Water Release):** This is result of Kyuubi's chakra getting sealed into Itachi. It is made by mixing katon with suiton and it is not the futton the mizukage has because the Kyuubi's chakra was used in the making of it. Like hoyoton, it can be made with single handed handseals. It is expleled like katon but it's consistency is that of suiton. Like suiton, it can be molded into all different kinds of shapes and most suiton jutsu can be easily converted into kasuiton jutsu (give the water prison Zabuaz makes the properties of heat and burning). Like katon, it burns what it touches. This means most people can't walk on it although Itachi can because he's immune to it. Itachi doesn't use this very often because of all the questions it brings up.

**Kagenagi no Tsurugi: Kuragari no Tachi** **(Shadowcutter Sword: Longsword of the Darkness):** (Yeah, I got board and started playing with my Japanese translators.) This is a less powerful version of Orochimaru's Kusanagi no Tsurugi: Kuu no Tachi, but not by much. (If you want to know why a sword called the Grasscutter Sword is also called the Longsword of the Heavens, look up the phrase "sword of Japanese legend" on wikipedia. It's a very interesting article to read if you're up to date on the manga or the anime.) Like the Kusanagi, it is carried inside a snake and can turn into one. It can also cut through just about anything, become as long or as short as Anko wants it to be, and is under Anko's control even if she's not holding it. Unlike the Kusanagi, it isn't a poisened blade (that's what makes the Kusanagi the Kusanagi). Instead, it isn't visible unless it's in sunlight or unless Anko wants it to be. Unlike the Nara's jutsu which use shadows cast by anything including artificial light, the only light that affects the Kagenagi is sunlight.

**Kasuiton: Hoekidame no Jutsu (Fire-Water Release: Art of Fire Reservoir):** Itachi expels kasuiton through his mouth. It covers whatever floor he's standing on giving him an outside source of kasuiton and his opponents no place to stand

The jutsu Anko uses to block Itachi's fireball is a variation of the jutsu the Sound Four use to contain Orochimaru and Sarutobi's fight in the chunin exams.

The fight scene that happens in this chapter is the first one I've written so if you think I could use improvement, please tell me! Thanks for reading!


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